


Safe

by TheMewsAtTen



Category: God's Own Country, God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Firefighter AU, Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 12:24:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16387670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMewsAtTen/pseuds/TheMewsAtTen
Summary: Firefighter Johnny Saxby keeps to himself most of the time. When Gheorghe Ionescu arrives at the station on a transfer, will Johnny be able to hold up the walls he’s worked so hard to build around himself?All the usual disclaimers apply - I don't own GOC or these characters, no profit is being made or copyright infringement intended.





	1. Johnny

Dread pressed down on him, the way it always did when he woke. For that first few seconds it made lifting his head from the pillow and his body from the sunken mattress feel impossible.

He hated waking up, even when he didn’t have a wild hangover. 

Today was a hangover day.

Johnny Saxby came round to the same sounds every morning. The alarm on his phone was always set to the same radio station, the same show presented by the same overpaid presenter, his voice annoying enough to make sure Johnny wouldn’t sleep in. 

He’d know he’d been laying there on his back stewing for too long when the traffic report started, clashing with Nan’s voice barking his name up the stairs. She always made sure he was shifting his arse - _belt and braces_ , as she always said. He’d already had more than one warning for swanning in late for the start of the day shift, and just as many lectures from Dad about pushing old Houghton’s loyalty too far. 

He sometimes wondered whether he’d still have a job if it weren’t for them - Dad and Nan. There were days when he doubted he’d even bother to get dressed and trudge the ten minutes from the house to the fire station. But he did, come rain, sleet, snow or shine. He’d be leaving them in the shit if he didn’t.

Johnny knew he was needed. Even if they hated how he’d turned out.

“You can’t lose this job, Christ knows you’re not trained for owt else,” Dad said every time Johnny came rushing down in the morning, fifteen minutes behind where he should be.

The night shifts weren’t a problem. He was always on time for night shift. It was the day shift that was a pain in the arse. When they clocked off at 6pm, one of the others would start making noise about a swift pint around the corner, which turned into three, then four . . . It was way too tempting. And it wasn’t like Johnny needed an excuse. Even when no one suggested it, more often than not he’d wind up there anyway, propping up the bar alone. It was better than spending the evening at home, sitting in silence while Dad and Nan went over all the ways he’d managed to let them down. Pub nights normally meant staying till the bar staff turfed him out at last orders, which meant Dad and Nan would usually both be in their beds by the time he got home. 

The routine carried him with it - work, pub, home, hangover, work, pub, home, hangover. At least he never had to think about it much.

Johnny braced himself against the day as he sat up on the side of his single bed. Old and worn, like most things in the house, it squeaked and creaked when he moved. He breathed deeply in, then out, the air in the room so cold he could see his morning breath cloud in front of his face. The weak, woolly feeling of last night’s skinfull thrummed through him, head to frozen toes, making the wavy pattern on the tatty wallpaper look like it was blurring and wriggling. 

“Aye, _alright_!” he snapped when Nan called his name up the stairs again, more piercing this time.

He’d shouted louder than he’d needed to. The sound of his own voice felt like it was bouncing off the inside of his skull.

The bathroom was only a bit warmer than the rest of the house. Nan would turn the radiator up in there when she got up in the morning, so it wouldn’t be like a fridge when he got up for his shower. Johnny pretended he didn’t know. It all felt easier that way.

He turned his face upwards into the hot stream of the shower, bracing a hand against the tiles as he wanked himself off. Quick and rough, the same as every morning - relief, not pleasure. The blonde lad behind the bar at The Crown this time. His wet mouth, pretty pink lips stretched around Johnny’s cock as Johnny fucked his face after closing at the pub. He had a few of these filthy scenes stored away for getting himself off quickly - it was the only part of his mornings that changed all that often. They were all really dirty. This one just happened to be complete fantasy too. 

Johnny was OK with fantasy. His fantasies were something he could contain. He knew what happened if you weren’t careful, if you got too close. A casual fuck to take the edge off was all well and good, and Christ knew it had been a while since he'd had one of those. But things got complicated quickly. Johnny didn’t want complicated. Nothing good ever came of complicated.

He thought the pretty barman was probably straight, anyway.

Barrelling down the stairs in the same black t-shirt and jeans he’d been wearing at the pub last night, he grabbed a piece of toast, stuffing it into his mouth. He wasn’t hungry, but at least this way he’d have an excuse not to speak to them. He filled a pint glass with cold water from the kitchen tap, gulping half of it down greedily before doubling back into the living room. 

He tried not to look up at the photograph of her - the one they’d never moved from over the fireplace. But somehow trying _not_ to look just made it harder not to. His eyes found hers, and the crush of breathlessness he felt every time weighed on him again. It was pointless trying to avoid it. Now he’d looked, that gaze on the wall would follow him until he left the room. He’d even feel it on his back as he left the house, as he stomped down the street and got to work. It wasn’t a comfort like people always said, that feeling of being ‘watched over’, because she wasn’t really there. It really only felt like the memory was mocking him. He didn’t want some imitation his fucked-up brain had created. If he couldn’t have the real thing, he’d rather have nothing at all.

“Crown again last night, then?” Dad growled from the armchair opposite the telly, looking up from the newspaper on his lap.

Johnny was over six feet tall, but Dad had a way of making him feel like he was an eight-year-old again. Dad felt unreachable too, in his own way. There, but not there. In 18 months he’d lost half his body weight, and most of his hair. His skin had always been pale, like Johnny’s own, but now it looked bluish grey in some lights, his eyes sad and sunken. Johnny had stopped trying to remember what his father’s smile looked like. It had been so long, too long, since he’d seen it. He wondered if Dad's craggy face would break into a thousand pieces if he tried to smile now. 

Johnny didn't answer him. He swept out of the room, grabbing his jacket from the bannister and bolting out of the front door, toast in hand. Nan called something to his back that he couldn’t quite hear. It would keep. There was nothing he could say to either of them that wouldn’t end in an argument, and he wasn’t sure his head could handle it yet. They could have a slanging match just as easily when he got home. 

 _Something to look forward to_ , he thought bitterly.

He frisked the pockets of his jeans for his fag packet, lighting up as he walked. This was really the only part of the morning Johnny could stand, his feet pounding the pavements through the empty estate, the dewy night-cold still hanging in the air. At this time of year it was pitch black on his morning walk to work. Johnny liked it; he liked the dark. It made him feel free and powerful. He inhaled sharply through his nose, feeling the morning cold quenching his heat, the last of the alcohol burning away, clearing his head.

He thought about the houses that made up their estate as he passed them one by one, street by street. Dad had been born in theirs - Nan and Grandad had moved in there when they married, and it had been the Saxbys’ home ever since. Dad had never moved away. He liked what he knew. Nan used to joke that he’d been on a lads’ weekend to Scarborough once but didn’t like it so he never went anywhere after that.

Back when she still joked every now and then. 

The semi-detached brick houses all looked the same. Johnny supposed they’d all been built at a time when everybody was expected to have the same ambitions, to get married and fire out just enough children to make a house a home, but never so many that it made the place look untidy. But the shoebox houses had eventually turned out to be the wrong size for real people’s lives.

In a grim, defeated sort of way, Johnny was proud of the place. It gave him a strange satisfaction to think of the disappointment of the smug planning folk who’d thought they had all the answers back then; the suits who’d come along and designed and built these houses, hoping that they’d make the Yorkshire working classes behave themselves.

 _No chance_ , he thought with dark humour. This estate was nothing if not a hodge-podge of salt-of-the-earth folk, the kind of people you'd see politicians shouting at each other about on the evening news, pretending to have their best interests at heart, getting off on the idea of lifting them out of all this and into a better life. Whatever that meant. A subject for dickheads’ dinner parties and not much else.

What those people didn’t bank on was how little the folk round here gave a shit what they thought.

Johnny turned the corner, stamping out his fag, zipping his jacket up against the cold that was suddenly starting to bite a bit harder. He sped up. He'd be early for once.

He knew he was wrong inside. He had to be wrong inside to feel so lonely in the middle of so much life.

 

\- - - - - - - - -

 

“You drag your arse in late for three dayshifts on the trot, now you’re in half hour early. You sure you know how to tell the time?”

Johnny slammed his locker shut. Houghton was an alright sort. He just thought he was being funny when he wasn’t.

“Just makin’ an effort, boss,” he answered drily without turning around. 

“I’ll not hold me breath,” Houghton threw back. “Anyroad it’s just as well you’re ‘ere early, I need to speak to you about summat. My office.” 

Johnny heard him stride off, not waiting for a response, knowing Johnny would follow. He groaned, pressing his forehead against the cold steel of his locker, wondering what the hell he’d managed to do this time. He did a quick inventory of the station wear he’d just changed into. Whatever it was he’d done, Houghton would be an even bigger pain in his arse if he wasn’t properly suited and booted while he was bollocking him.

Turning on his heel, he followed Houghton up the corridor, his eyes fixed on the jacket of his uniform stretched across his broad back. Houghton had always been a big bloke, but he was well into his fifties now, silvering hair and paunch starting to give away how close he was to retirement. Him and Dad had grown up together, had been best mates all their lives. Over the last year and a half Houghton seemed to have grown at the same pace that Dad had shrunk. 

Houghton sat at his desk, gesturing to the chair opposite him. Johnny chose to stand.The office was as tidy as always. Houghton had been an army man for a good few years before joining the fire service, and it showed.

“No need to look so serious, son, you’re not up on charges,” he growled good-naturedly.

Johnny shuffled on the spot. A headache was starting to beat at his right temple, and he wanted to get this over with as quickly as he could. “Why _am_ I ‘ere boss?”

Houghton looked like he was bracing himself for something. Johnny knew him well enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.

“I want you to do something.”

“Aye?”

“You know we’ve got a new member of the watch joining us today . . .”

Johnny nodded. The rumour mill had been going overtime since Houghton had first mentioned it a fortnight ago, everyone fretting about who it would be, why they were coming. 

Houghton looked down at the papers on his desk. “Well, his name’s Ionescu. Gheorghe Ionescu. He’s on a three-month transfer to us. Up from London,” Houghton sighed deeply. 

Johnny realised he knew what was coming. 

“What you _don’t_ know, what none of the team know, is _why_ he’s coming,” Houghton cleared his throat. His hands were clasped in front of him so tight his knuckles looked white. “After what happened wi’ the Wainwrights, the powers that be reckoned a bit of, ‘skills exchange’, I think they called it, were needed . . .”

Fury licked in Johnny’s gut, and for a moment he wished he’d taken that seat when it was offered. 

He would remember that night till the day he died. The job was hard sometimes. But that night, the sight of three members of the same family, two kids under 10, laying dead from smoke inhalation, the wail of despair that sounded like it came from the core of John Wainwright’s being when he arrived on the scene to see his whole world, his wife and kids, being carried away in body bags. When folk had started blaming the crew in the days that followed, questioning why it took them so long to reach the scene, taking apart every thing they’d done to find fault . . . 

It was the closest Johnny had ever come to leaving the service, and God knew he’d had his moments.

“Thought the inquiry agreed it were all those AFAs that night? The delays, like. Less crews covering more ground year after year. I mean for fuck’s sake, every time some pissed student burns his toast we have to go out, fire or not. ‘Tragedy waiting to happen’ was what they said, weren’t it?”

Houghton sat with his head in his hands for a few seconds before looking up. Johnny found himself shocked at how knackered he looked. “Aye. On paper. But you know as well as I do that public confidence is another matter. We need to be seen to be improvin’.”

“And this London bloke . . .”

“Ionescu.”

“Aye him. He’s comin’ to tell us how to do our jobs?”

“No-one’s comin’ to tell anyone how to do owt. He’s comin’ to see what can be done to _help_. And it’s an exchange. He’s ‘ere as much to learn as he is to teach.”

“Right,” Johnny sneered sceptically, wondering whether Houghton was trying to convince him, or to convince himself. “Where do I come in?”

“I want you to work alongside him. I’m . . . _concerned_. About how some of the team . . . Ionescu’s been based in London for a few years but he were born and brought up in Romania. You know what some of them, the lads . . .”

Johnny threw his head back, smirking bitterly. “Aye. You want me to be the bloke’s _babysitter_?!”

“No, I just want you to be . . . a point of contact. You’d have been workin’ together a lot in any case, same watch, same shift patterns, you’ll be there when I’m not. Look Saxby, I’ve met the guy and he’s decent. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think the two of you could get along.”

“ _Are_ you askin’? Or are you tellin’?”

Houghton stared at him for a moment. If Johnny didn’t know better, he might have thought he was about to say please. “If you really don’t want to do it I can ask Lockwood. She’s good wi’ folk. But I’d prefer it to be you. I think it will help him. And . . . it’ll be good for you.”

There it was. The pity. It was an expression he’d seen on so many faces over the last 18 months. He knew Houghton meant well, deep down. Like a lot of their family friends, he wanted to feel he was doing something to help. Maybe it really was about giving Johnny purpose. A distraction. A professional opportunity, even. But the urge to smash Houghton’s face in still burned in Johnny for a split second. Only the thought of how he’d never hear the end of it if he lumbered Rob with the extra work, and the world-weary look on Houghton’s face, kept him in check.

“Looks like it’ll have to be me, then,” Johnny mumbled out through gritted teeth. 

Houghton seemed to deflate with relief. “I appreciate that, Saxby. I’ll be introducin’ Ionescu at the brief this morning. The three of us can go over the specifics straight after that.”

 _Can’t wait_ , Johnny thought sourly. “That everythin’, boss?”

“Aye son, that’s everythin'.”

Johnny bolted from the room and down the corridor. He’d need a fag before that bloody briefing.

 

\- - - - - - - - -

 

“Oh ‘ere he is, everyone’s favourite misery guts. Sore head this mornin’ have you?”

That was one of the problems with Rob Lockwood. It felt like you never heard her coming until it was too late to get away. Johnny rolled his eyes. The staff room in the station was lovely when it was empty, but it never seemed to stay that way for long.

“Fuck off,” he grunted quietly into his coffee cup.

Southall had come loping in behind Rob, the way he always seemed to these days. Rob was about as short as it was possible to be as a firefighter, and Southall was at least three inches taller even than Johnny. They looked comical together, him so imposing but so shy, her so slight and so mouthy. 

Johnny had taken a while to suss Southall out. He hadn’t trusted him at first. Johnny never trusted anyone at first, not anymore. But these days he found he didn’t mind him so much. He’d worked with enough macho arseholes since joining the service to know Jake Southall was a sound guy really. Besides, unlike Rob, he didn’t talk too much, and Johnny liked that in a person. 

He knew it had been hard work for Rob to carve out her career in the service. He'd been there when she did it. She was still the only woman at their station. Every now and then the area manager would get it into his head to try and recruit more women, but it was always half-arsed. They didn’t really want change, Johnny knew, they just didn’t want to look like they weren’t trying. Rob had had to work twice as hard as any two blokes at the station to get to where she was, and she still got stick from some of the team even though she’d earned her stripes over and over again. It felt good to see she had decent folk like Southall around her, fighting her corner. Rob would swear blind she didn’t need anyone looking out for her, but Johnny had always just wanted to, even when they were kids growing up. He got the feeling it was something he and Southall had in common.

“You gonna tell me or am I havin’ to guess?” she asked, throwing herself down on the seat to Johnny’s left while Southall slumped into the seat on the right.

Johnny knew there was no point brushing her off. She knew when he was pissed off. Besides, in a few minutes she’d have the whole story from Houghton anyway. 

“Project from Houghton. New guy’s starting today and I’ve to . . . keep an eye on him.”

He looked over to see Rob biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing, while Southall stared at the carpet tiles as if they’d suddenly become the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. 

The three of them drained their coffees and made their way to the brief together. Johnny was on edge, and Rob staring at him, while Southall stared at Rob, wasn’t helping.

The room was already full, heavy with the smell of bad breath and unwashed bloke when they got there. Johnny’s eyes drifted up to where Houghton was standing at the front of the room. 

His stomach flipped when he clocked the guy standing next to him.

 _Fuck’s sake,_ he groaned quietly, turning his face up to the ceiling with a grimace.

Station wear was designed to make folk look the same. That was the point of it. Somehow Ionescu managed to look like something out of a porno just by standing there in it. Only slightly shorter than Johnny, with black hair and big, dark eyes, he was stunning, and Johnny drank in the dips of his muscles under his grey t-shirt, the gentle but impressive bulges of his biceps. 

“Ionescu’s come to us from London,” Houghton shouted gruffly. He’d started talking while Johnny had still been distracted. “He’s come up to share his insights into some new approaches from down south, things we’re going to have to test out, things we’ll likely need to implement if we’re going to show the media that we’re operatin’ in 2017 and not the 1970s. So you’ll be hearin’ him out, showin’ respect, decency, or you’ll be explainin’ to me why you can’t.”

Houghton scanned the room pointedly. Ionescu looked uncomfortable, but calm. Serene, almost. Johnny tried to listen to what was being said, tried to stop himself from thinking about how those arms would look folded lazily above Ionescu’s head as Johnny rode his cock . . .

“Ionescu will be shadowing Saxby while he’s with us . . .”

The room suddenly filled with jeers and whistles. Ionescu looked discreetly at the floor, and Johnny could feel Rob’s taunting grin from beside him burning into his skin. He hoped to Christ she hadn’t learned how to read his mind all of a sudden.

“There’s no significant change to the line of command . . .’ Houghton continued, raising his voice to silence the din. Johnny, again, was only half listening, “but as Ionescu is an established crew manager it’s expected you _will_ give that the respect it warrants. So, Ionescu, welcome to blue watch.”

“Thank you,” Ionescu responded with a brief nod, his hands clasped in front of him, his feet apart in a way that made him look confident, but not arrogant. 

Johnny swallowed thickly at the sound of that voice, deep and steady.

“Right! Thank you, let’s get to it! Saxby, with me and Ionescu,” Houghton concluded sharply.

The team broke ranks, Rob elbowing Johnny playfully in the ribs and throwing him an exaggerated wink before following Southall outside. 

When Johnny looked up, Ionescu locked eyes with him, his gaze dark and inquisitive, and he just knew the next three months were going to be absolute fucking torture.


	2. Gheorghe

“Keep it tidy. Houghton likes a tidy locker.” Saxby slammed the metal door closed and locked it, tossing the small key into the air in Gheorghe’s direction.

Gheorghe caught it with a brisk nod of acknowledgement that Saxby almost certainly missed - he was already pacing off down the hallway ahead of him, hands in pockets.

Gheorghe followed him, a few steps behind. He risked a guilty glance at Saxby’s pert backside moving under the fabric of his black trousers, the way his t-shirt fell, hinting at prominent shoulder blades and lean, defined muscle . . . 

Gheorghe shook his head sternly, rebuking himself. It was that sort of daydreaming that would lead to trouble. And trouble was something Gheorghe made a point of avoiding, especially at work. 

While Saxby continued with his half-hearted orientation, Gheorghe mulled over what they supposed he planned to put in a locker to make it untidy. Everything he’d needed for his three-month stay in Yorkshire had fit into the boot of a hire car, with room to spare. 

There were only a handful of possessions that meant anything to him. His watch that had belonged to his grandfather. His Romanian to English dictionary, spine cracked and pages falling out. The photograph of his sister Ioana and the kids that sat next to his bed - wherever his bed happened to be. It was what happened when you’d grown up poor; when you’d spent years moving around. He’d learned about the cost and value of things early on. If you wanted to be ready to take chances when they came along, you had to be selective about what you carried with you. 

If you wanted to survive, you had to be willing to leave some things behind. 

 _No matter, anyway,_ he thought as he strode after the sour, rangy young man in front of him. His locker would always be tidy in any case. Gheorghe wasn’t ashamed of the fact that he didn’t need much.

He _was_ intrigued by the idea that Houghton could be a stickler, though. It seemed a bit of a contradiction to Gheorghe - a version of the station manager that was at odds with what he’d seen of him so far. It occurred to him that Saxby’s comment might just have been flippant; his clumsy way of trying to start a conversation. Gheorghe quickly dismissed the idea. Nothing else about Saxby suggested that he wanted to chat. 

But still, Houghton’s watch briefing that morning _hadn’t_ been the strict ritual that Gheorghe had been used to back in London . . . 

 

Gheorghe never lost his cool. Not in public, at least. He had known these months in Yorkshire wouldn’t always be straightforward, and he’d prepared himself for them, mentally as well as physically. He was _prepared_ to be worked hard, to be tested by the team he would be joining. And he was ready for all the usual suspicion, too - the bigotry. He was _ready_. But he still hadn’t been looking forward to this first day.

He’d settled on a game plan, to do it hour by hour, separating it out into smaller parts that were easier to tackle one by one.

That watch briefing had been the first part, and Gheorghe had psyched himself up for it. He’d been prepared for the worst. But the difference in the way things were done had still taken him by surprise. 

It had all been a bit . . . _casual_. Blue Watch had dripped in gradually over the course of ten minutes or so. Houghton had spent that time making small talk with Gheorghe - or trying to, at least - giving no sign of being especially conscious of his team, gathering to hear their instructions for the day.

“There’s Saxby just there.” Houghton, hands clasped behind his back, had inclined his head towards three people as they’d ambled into the briefing room together. Two men and a woman. He’d given no other indication of which of the two men was John Saxby; as if it were just _obvious_ which was the man Gheorghe would be working alongside more or less constantly during his stay. 

Gheorghe had learned that people did that. If they weren’t used to being new to a place they took lots of things for granted. It was one of the subtle differences between people who knew they belonged somewhere and people who felt they didn’t - they just forgot what it felt like not to know the ‘obvious' things.

Gheorghe had scoped the group for clues. All three of them were young; Gheorghe guessed they were all probably a little younger than his own 33 years. The woman was very small and energetic-looking, fair-skinned with short black hair and a bouncy, confident air. Next to her, the first of the men was extremely tall and very slim, with a similar colouring and an endearing awkwardness in the way he moved, as if he were still figuring out how his body worked. He was listening intently to whatever it was that the woman was saying, with a face-cracking smile and wide eyes.

The second man had trailed gravely behind them. He was half a head or so shorter than the first, alabaster and mousy. And with one glance at him, Gheorghe felt like all the air had left the room. 

Gheorghe looked. 

Turned away. 

Looked again. 

 _O Doamne_ , he was gorgeous. Beautiful, but haunted, somehow. Gheorghe watched him turn his face up to the ceiling; it looked like he might have been muttering something. Gheorghe couldn’t make it out, but whatever it was, he looked thunderous.

Gheorghe had focused on the toes of his own boots, polished to a shine so pristine he could practically see his own features reflected in them. 

 _Please, for the sake of my sanity, please let Saxby be the first guy,_ he wished at his own feet.

Gheorghe inhaled sharply as he looked up again. The beautiful guy was absorbing every inch of him with a gaze that _burned_.

Gheorghe’s pulse quickened, his palms sweating. There was no doubt about it. Something in him, the inexplicable twitch in his gut and swoop in his chest that he knew he could always trust, told him that he was looking at John Saxby.

Gheorghe clasped his hands in front of him, determined not to allow himself to be hypnotised in full view of all of Blue Watch.

“We’ll get this briefing out of the way then the three of us can talk the practicalities over in my office,” Houghton had muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Gheorghe, landing his coffee mug too heavily on the table beside him. Black liquid sloshed over the edge and onto the tabletop. Houghton swore under his breath, giving a stern nod of thanks to a guy who’d stepped up from the front of the room to mop up the mess while Houghton began the briefing.

The room eventually fell into a heavy hush, forming ranks when Houghton started speaking, without him needing to call them to attention. 

Gheorghe’s station manager back in London loved the parade. _His_ briefings were practically treated as a sacrament. Gheorghe bit back a rueful smile at the thought of how disgusted old Kemp would be to see Houghton - a fellow ex-soldier, no less - slacking on ceremony.

But then there was no obvious sign of any bad discipline or dissent, either. As far as Gheorghe could see, the team were knockabout and high-spirited but they seemed to respect the boss, even without the forced procedure.

He was glad. He was there to feed back about areas for improvement, after all. An external pair of eyes to help problem solve. It was a relief that he probably _wouldn’t_ have to find a way of telling Houghton his team didn’t respect his command. He’d prefer not to urge formality if there was another way. 

Besides, Kemp only got that show of respect because he demanded it. _Respect means more when it’s earned_ , Gheorghe reminded himself. It was what his mother had always said to him. Experience had already taught him she’d been right. 

As Houghton had introduced him by name, Gheorghe had looked from face to face as discreetly as he could. The expressions he’d come to expect were all there - curiosity, boredom, hostility, curiosity again, more hostility, hostility again, boredom . . .

But almost-certainly-Saxby, the hollowed-out guy with the wary eyes and sharp cheekbones . . . he was unfathomable. His wasn’t a look of warmth or of welcome, and yet Gheorghe could have stared at him all day without ever wanting to look away.

When Houghton brought the watch briefing to an end Gheorghe had breathed deeply, in and out, ticking it with satisfaction off the list he was keeping in his head - the list of embarrassing moments and unfamiliarities and awkward conversations that he knew today had to be to get him through to tomorrow, to the next day; to the job in hand. 

That was what Gheorghe was focused on - _on getting on with the work_. 

The meeting with Saxby and Houghton that had followed had been excruciating by comparison. The hot claustrophobia, the thrum of the feeling - whatever it was - between him and Saxby, was too distracting for him to take in anything much of what Houghton was saying to him. He caught all the usual platitudes - that Saxby would show him around the station, get him settled in, that he could go to him with any immediate questions or queries. The empty reassurances were as familiar to Gheorghe as the assumptions that he automatically knew certain things and recognised certain people. 

He had suddenly felt deeply _foreign_ , and _angry_ , a jolt of hostility to both men taking him completely by surprise. He couldn’t imagine what he could possibly need from Saxby, anyway, and surely Houghton could see that Saxby wasn’t exactly coming across as approachable? He seemed volatile, in fact - crackling with something, like everyone and everything around him was braced for him to erupt. When Gheorghe had reached out to shake his hand, Saxby had taken it as if someone had been holding a gun to his head, dropping it almost at once, like the touch had hurt him. Gheorghe didn’t believe, _couldn’t_ believe, that Houghton couldn’t see all this for himself. He was used to prejudice, to xenophobic men’s men who thought his very existence was a threat. This didn’t feel like that. It would be easy to pass it off as that, of course. But no. This was . . . _different_. 

Perhaps that was it. Perhaps, when it came down to it, Houghton was as confused by Saxby as Gheorghe was.

When Houghton had signalled that they were finished Saxby spun on his heel abruptly, walking out of the office like he was fleeing an argument.

Gheorghe had felt the room exhale. 

Saxby hadn’t needed to ask or tell Gheorghe to follow him. Gheorghe just _wanted_ to. There was something about Saxby that left Gheorghe furious and fascinated. Something that made him want to pretend he wasn’t there, and shake him and shout “I’m here, look at me!” all at once.

And even in spite of Saxby’s obvious hostility, the way he dragged his feet around the station and avoided eye contact, the way he slammed that locker door and stomped around in a way that said he really didn’t care whether Gheorghe followed or not, Gheorghe found he _wanted_ to see where Saxby would take him. He didn’t especially need him to point out where the drill ground was or the pole drop, or where the breathing apparatus was stowed. With some variation, stations tended to be laid out along the same lines, and Gheorghe knew exactly what to expect when the bells went down.

No, it wasn’t his sense of professionalism or his need for orientation that had been holding his attention. In some strange way, watching this angry, burdened wraith of a man move, just being around him, gave Gheorghe a feeling of being furiously awake and alive. It was almost as disarming as the way his heart sped up and his breath shortened when their eyes met. 

 

Eventually, when Saxby had finished showing him around and left him alone in the staff room, Gheorghe sat down with a cup of coffee. He checked his watch. From briefing to Houghton’s office to station tour to now had been barely 45 minutes. But it felt like hours, like different days, almost. Like two different places. 

Feeling the grounding sting of heat from the cup on his palms, he tried to absorb everything he’d seen and heard, stage by stage, methodically and calmly - the way he tried to do everything. 

Taking a sip, tasting the bitterness on his tongue, he attempted to untie the oddly empty feeling of Saxby’s absence from the feeling of relief that he was gone - the feeling of his body being freed from accidental reactions and responses to a guy who felt only half there, somehow. Like a dream. 

That station tour had been . . . _surreal_. When he had caught Saxby’s gaze, Saxby had looked away like a child caught stealing sweets, and Gheorghe had swallowed thickly in spite of himself. When Saxby had rubbed the back of his neck shyly with a shaking hand, the tips of his ears reddening, Gheorghe’s fingers had tingled to reach out, to feel that fresh, boyish skin, to run his thumb over that full, pink bottom lip.

Gheorghe stewed silently as his coffee cooled. 

He cursed under his breath. 

His list of things he’d need to get through during these three months was long. It didn’t have space on it for a naive obsession like this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much to everyone who has left kudos and comments and got in touch to encourage me to persist with this. It truly does make a difference to me.


	3. Gheorghe

Gheorghe found himself in a corner of The Crown, tucked away from the worst of the evening’s clamour. He nursed the dregs of a slightly flat, and now distinctly warm, pint of lager between his hands, making a point of keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact with anyone apart from his companions. The pub was heaving. They’d been lucky to get this spot, the three of them huddled on stools around the tiny round wooden table like campers around a fire.

They _had_ been a circle of four, until a few minutes ago when Saxby had got up to make his latest trip to the bar.

Saxby could drink a pint in four or five gulps. That much had become obvious to Gheorghe almost as soon as they’d sat down. It was obvious, too, that that wasn’t the way everyone else around him was drinking.

“Christ John, go easy,” Rob had huffed, clearly only half joking, when Saxby had got up in pursuit of his fourth pint.

Saxby had looked at Gheorghe then. Briefly. Gheorghe had seen it. He’d looked, for a moment, right into Saxby’s gorgeous, intriguing eyes. And Saxby had _really_ _, truly_ looked at him, his gaze wary but curious, no doubt the effect of the beer on his inhibitions.

It was so quick. If Gheorghe had been looking the other way he’d never have known Saxby had given him so much as a passing glance. 

His own eyes had followed Saxby to the bar as he walked off. He’d only had two pints himself, was still tense and cautious and guarded, but already easing up just enough to risk a glance at Saxby’s arse as he moved across the room. 

Gheorghe had known that this would happen at some point, even if he hadn’t expected it to happen on his first day. There was something inevitable about it - the time-honoured after-work pub visit.

His limited past experiences of English pubs had trained him well. He’d learned to be nervous about going to any he didn’t already know. And when Robyn - _Rob_ , he reminded himself - had invited him to come for a pint after work, his gut instinct had been to politely decline altogether. Aside from anything else, he just didn’t like to drink the way the English did. Labouring and hitch-hiking his way through most of Europe had taught him that _few_ people liked to drink the way the English did.

But he also understood English people well enough to foresee that a refusal now could well be enough to shape the entire three months he would spend here - and _not_ for the better.

He knew how working in Britain was. Opportunity, rumour, news, it all came out at the pub after work. It wasn’t right. Gheorghe hated that it was this way. But it _was_ this way. He knew if he wanted to be taken into the team, for his time in Yorkshire to mean anything at all, he had to get his colleagues on side. If it meant having to sit in a crowded pub nursing a lukewarm beer while the regulars picked him out as a stranger and gave him hostile looks, then that was what he had to do.

Besides, it was already obvious that Rob wasn’t an easy woman to say no to . . .

 

He’d wondered if she’d been looking for him; she’d tracked him down to the staff room and made a beeline for him just a few minutes after Saxby had left him there. He’d looked up from his coffee cup to see a spiky-haired ball of human peering through the glass in the door, locking him in her sights, throwing herself into the room and bounding towards him. 

That other guy who’d been with them earlier at the briefing - the one who, it had turned out, _wasn’t_ Saxby - had sloped in not far behind her, less urgently, hands in pockets and an easy smile on his face.

The chair next to Gheorghe’s had screeched against the lino as she’d dragged it into position opposite his, settling herself into it back-to-front with a grin that could have lit up the whole room. 

“Hiya! I’m Rob. Robyn Lockwood. Call me Rob.” Her handshake was firm. Sincere. Gheorghe had instantly liked that about her.

“Gheorghe,” he’d offered back, hoping she’d take the opening; that he wouldn’t be condemned to be known as ‘Ionescu’ for the next three months.

He’d sat there listening as Rob had repeated more or less all of the information Saxby had given him, this time complete with friendly asides and anecdotes. Why Houghton hadn’t just partnered him with her from the start Gheorghe couldn’t quite understand. 

He’d found out that the third member of their trio - _Mr Not-Saxby_ \- was Jake Southall. The familiarity between Rob and this exceptionally tall, anxious-looking guy was obvious. He’d watched the two of them with amusement, wondering if they themselves really were as blind as they seemed to be to what was obvious to him, even as a stranger. 

 _Quite possibly_ , he’d thought. People could be completely oblivious to things about themselves that were as plain as day to others.

She’d talked. He and Jake had listened. He’d felt comfortable, far more quickly than he was used to.

Then they’d asked him to come to the pub with them after the shift, and for a moment his heart had sunk a little.

Saxby had wandered through the staff room door just as he’d been reluctantly accepting the offer.

“John! Gheorghe ‘ere’s coming’ to The Crown wi’ us end of shift, you up for it?” Jake had called over.

“Whatever,” Saxby had answered sullenly, not even looking at them, making himself a coffee without another word before heading back out again.

 

The pub itself had turned out to be more or less what Gheorghe had been expecting. Dark wood furniture everywhere that had seen better days, dizzying, ugly pattern on the carpet, dart board in the corner. The smell was of stale beer, cheap perfume and fish and chips.

Gheorghe felt excruciatingly out of place. 

Still, at least Rob was turning out to be a good cure for the awkward silences he’d been fearing all afternoon . . . 

“. . . so I’m really hopin’ I can specialise in animal rescue eventually, but y’know how it is. There’s hardly any budget for community safety work as it is. Wi’ all the budget cuts we’re bound to get next year, folk are just goin’ to be sayin’ more and more that we shouldn’t be ‘wastin’ money’ on animals. I’ve looked at what other services down south are doin’, and animal rescue is always the first thing to get cut . . .”

Gheorghe nodded as she broke off her monologue to neck a mouthful of her pint. 

He didn’t like to admit it, but she was right. The story was the same everywhere. Less money, fewer resources, higher expectations, and everyone thought they knew best about what was a ‘waste’ and what wasn’t. 

She centred a coaster in front of her, placing her pint on top, furtively scanning the room. 

Gheorghe followed her gaze. 

Their eyes landed on Saxby leaning against the bar, throwing back a shot, hardly breathing before starting in on a fresh pint. 

Rob looked intently at Jake. They seemed to come to an agreement on something, wordlessly.

“Listen,” she said eventually, moving in close to Gheorghe, lowering her voice. “I know Saxby comes off as a mardy arse - standoffish, like - but he’s a good bloke really. We’ve been best friends our whole lives,” she added with a misty smile. “He’s . . . been through stuff is all. Sorry if he’s not being the best host, like. Just try not to let him annoy you too much, yeah?”

Gheorghe looked to Jake, who nodded sagely, a sad smile on his face as he polished off the end of his pint. 

Gheorghe just smiled back, at a loss. It would hardly be sensible or fair to admit to Saxby’s closest friends that he seemed miserable. But then Gheorghe couldn’t honestly deny it, either. Saxby had seemed pissed off to have been given the job of pairing up with Gheorghe. No-one would believe him if he sat there and pretended he’d welcomed him with cake and a brass band. 

“Robyyyyyyyyyn . . .!” a woman crooned, suddenly stumbling over to their table, teetering worryingly on impossibly high stiletto heels and throwing her arms around Rob, nearly spilling her drink in the process.

“Alright Hayls?” Rob said slowly, rolling her eyes at Jake and Gheorghe over the woman’s shoulder. Jake chuckled and shook his head incredulously. Gheorghe didn’t dare move a muscle. 

The woman pulled away, mouth gaping open, her gaze, slightly bleary from drink, resting hungrily on Gheorghe.

“And who’s _this_?” she asked, leering so close Gheorghe could smell her wine breath. “I don’t think we’ve met, ‘cos I’d’ve remembered _you_.” She fell heavily onto the stool opposite Gheorghe, the one that had been vacated by Saxby when he went to the bar.

“Hayley, this is Gheorghe. Gheorghe, Hayley. Gheorghe’s on transfer to the station from London for a few months. Hayley, _believe it or not_ , teaches in the school down the road,” Rob finished her introductions with a grin.

“For my sins,” Hayley tried to bat her eyelashes, but managed to make it look more like an alarming spasm.

Gheorghe offered Hayley his hand, which she held on to for an uncomfortably long time, running her thumb over his skin, her gaze fixed on his. 

Gheorghe never got used to this happening. He knew there was no easy way of making it clear to Hayley that she had no chance with him. He either had to hurt her feelings (which he really didn’t want to do) or out himself on the first day of the job (which he couldn’t yet be sure was wise).

“I am pleased to meet you,” he said, settling for bland good manners, gently extricating his hand from Hayley’s claw-like grip.

In the chaos of Hayley’s drunken arrival he hadn’t noticed Saxby making his way back to their table from the bar. Judging by Rob’s and Jake’s faces when they spotted him, neither had they.

Three sets of eyes looked up at him as he moved to stand next to Hayley, who was still watching Gheorghe like a predator staking out prey. Saxby didn’t address her, but stood in intimidating silence, making it clear that he was waiting for her to get out of _his_ seat and leave.

Hayley rolled her eyes sulkily as she took the less-than-subtle hint and sauntered away, flashing a wink at a blushing Gheorghe as a parting shot. 

Saxby sat down, his face like thunder. 

“Wha’d she want?” he slurred at no-one in particular.

“She was just saying how-do to Gheorghe,” Rob answered, looking at him pointedly, a distinct warning in her tone that said d _on’t cause trouble._

Saxby sneered, lifting his glass to his lips. 

_His wet lips, so soft-looking . . ._

Gheorghe felt his cheeks flame up again, with lust and anger this time. Saxby kept refusing to look at him, to meet his eyes, and the rudeness that Gheorghe had simply found confusing before was starting to grate on his nerves.

“Right well, I’d best be off, early start tomorrow” Rob said after a moment of heavy, prolonged silence, looking around the table, seizing on the fact that all four of them had either finished their drinks or were nearly there. 

“Yes. Me too,” Gheorghe put in, bolting to his feet, cringing slightly at how keen he sounded to be out of there. 

“I’ll see you back,” Jake said shyly to Rob, who beamed back, her blush rising. 

“Where you stayin’?” she asked Gheorghe.

“I have a flat. It is on Church Street, opposite the library,” he answered.

“Oh yeah! Thats on our way, walk wi’ us,” Jake offered, wrestling his coat on. 

“Thank you,” Gheorghe said, grateful for the prospect of company on what would be his first night-time walk home as a stranger in this strange town. He knew he could take care of himself if he needed to. He’d needed to before. But there was less likely to _be_ a need to when you had company. 

“John, you comin’?” Rob asked. She sounded like she already knew the answer, and Saxby certainly looked like he was settled in for the night.

“Nah. I’ll see you in the mornin’” he mumbled without looking up.

“Aye,” Robyn sighed, heading to the door, Jake following close behind.

“Night,” Gheorghe offered to Saxby, knowing that if he said nothing his own rudeness would niggle at him, keeping him awake.

“Night,” Saxby bit back blankly, downing his drink, getting up and walking straight past Gheorghe and back to his old spot by the bar.

Gheorghe followed Rob and Jake out the door, the wave of Yorkshire cold as much a sweet relief after the close heat of the pub as it was a shock to the system.

Unable to resist, he turned in the doorway to steal a last glance at Saxby. He stood alone again, another drink already in hand, looking away quickly when his eyes met Gheorghe’s. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone still following this story who stuck with me during the wait there. I will try to be better. The next chapter should follow fairly soon, mainly because it is quite short. Thank you so much for your kudos, your comments and your kindness.


	4. Johnny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for smut people!

“Fuck, that’s amazing. Oh yeah, _fuck_ . . .”

Johnny clamped his hand over the bloke’s mouth. His voice was putting him off.

They’d got talking about half an hour before last orders. He’d said something about being in town to visit a mate. Or something. Johnny didn’t remember, or particularly care. He’d come off as a bit arrogant - skinny jeans, over-styled hair, boyband smile and overpowering after shave combined to make him seem like someone head over heels in love with himself. But Johnny was strung out, and it was late. He was horny; sober enough to fuck, drunk enough to overlook the guy’s faults. 

When he’d leaned in towards Johnny at the bar and their eyes had met, _that_ look passing between them, Johnny had known what was on offer and decided there and then to take it. Like he always did - either took it or left it. He didn’t need their fucking life stories. He didn’t do talking and he didn’t do kissing. He needed a shag, not a mate.

He _definitely_ didn’t need their encouragement when he was fucking them in the alleyway behind The Crown.

Johnny kept jack-hammering roughly into the bloke, throwing his head back, basking in the feeling of the evening’s anger and confusion and frustration leaching from him with every thrust of his hips.

He was burning with fury; at Ionescu, for being so polite and professional to a fault, at himself for being naive enough to be instantly blindsided by a good-looking stranger like some kind of idiot teenager. He was furious at fucking Hayley Rycroft, practically getting up on the bar with her legs open for Ionescu as soon as she laid eyes on him; at himself for the pathetic little lick of hope in his chest when Ionescu made it clear he wasn’t interested, when he’d looked at him across the table, across the bar when he left, the way he’d said goodnight like he meant it. He was annoyed at Rob and Jake for encouraging him to hang around, calling him ‘Gheorghe’, getting to know him when all Johnny wanted was to try to keep him out of his head for the next three months. To get on with the absolute mess that was his life.

He didn’t need this. Least of all at work. You didn’t shit on your own doorstep like that. 

So far, keeping Ionescu out of his head really wasn’t working out for him. It didn’t help that it wasn’t just that Ionescu was gorgeous. There was something about him that had shot through Johnny like lightning the moment he’d looked into his eyes across the crowded briefing room, like in a cheesy film. The way his touch had felt when they’d shaken hands, heavy and real and grounding. The way it had seemed like he was really listening to Johnny, weighing and measuring every word carefully, even though Johnny knew he was being rude enough to put most people off him completely. So far he’d found nothing unlikeable about Ionescu. Nothing for him to hang on to to keep himself safe from wanting him. 

It was a new feeling, a strong feeling, and Johnny didn’t trust it. 

And on top of all that, Ionescu _was_ stupidly gorgeous. Those fucking eyes, so deep and hungry that Johnny couldn’t bear to look into them but desperately wanted to all at the same time. His hands, lovely thick fingers, distracting muscle definition, an arse he wanted to sink his teeth into. Even the beard. Johnny usually liked his blokes clean-shaven, but for some reason the beard just worked on Ionescu. His traitorous mind kept wandering . . . how it would feel if Ionescu kissed him; on his neck, scraping lightly against his nipples, his stomach. When he wrapped his lips around Johnny’s cock. How it would feel to pull out of his mouth and come all over that beautiful face . . . 

 _Fuck_.

He couldn’t help it. The thought of Ionescu was chasing him to release. 

The bloke he was fucking was nothing like Ionescu. Dark hair, but not built enough. Skinny, in fact. There could be no pretending. Opening his eyes made Johnny’s intoxicating, irresistible fantasy blur and shift away from him, so he kept them squeezed shut. It was confusing, misplaced somehow in this situation - any image of perfect, well-mannered Ionescu with his trousers round his ankles and Johnny’s cock up his arse next to a wheelie bin just didn’t fit. Like he knew instinctively that warmth, comfort and calm fit him better. 

But Johnny was _here_. He was _now_ and he was _here_. Shagging a bloke whose name he couldn’t quite recall. Not Ionescu. Ionescu was probably tucked up in bed, getting enough sleep, ready to be clean and fresh and perfect again tomorrow. 

The bloke let out a loud groan, still muffled by Johnny’s hand over his mouth. He came with a shudder, shooting his load against the brick of the wall and on the concrete below. He’d brought himself off while Johnny had been fucking him. Just as well. Johnny didn’t plan to stick around after he’d come to make sure a bloke he had no intention of ever seeing again was satisfied. Now he could blow off without having to worry about him standing there sulking with a raging hard-on when Johnny turned to leave.

He wasn’t in this to make men happy. It was release, quick and plain and simple. It was one of the few advantages of these encounters in alleyways, in cruising spots and public toilets rather than going home with blokes. It was understood that it was anonymous, and hasty. A way to avoid connection and side-step pillow talk. 

He allowed the picture of Ionescu in his head to really sharpen this time, not fighting it like he had been before. His big hands gripping the edge of the table Johnny had him bent over, groaning obscenely in that deep voice, that accent, with every deep thrust of Johnny’s cock, how it would feel to come in him, to feel his muscles clench around his cock as Johnny brought him to his own release.

Johnny pulled out almost as soon as he’d come, the frenzy over, the buzz of relief quickly giving way to the familiar feeling of disgust, at himself and at the bloke now awkwardly pulling up his jeans a few feet away. 

Johnny tucked his softening cock away and zipped his fly hastily, dumping the condom in the bin that had been hiding them from view before walking off in long, sure strides towards the main road and his route home. 

The bloke didn’t call after him or try to follow. Johnny was glad.

 

 


	5. Johnny

**One Week Later**

 

“Well y’know, John love, if you don’t fancy headin’ up to see the old dears at Rosemount, you and Gheorghe can always swap wi’ me and Jake. You never know, perhaps a morning talkin’ to the nippers at Hounsbury will cheer you right up . . .”

Rob hopped over to Johnny’s side as she teased him, ruffling his hair with one hand and waving the cardboard cutout she was holding in front of his face with the other. 

Johnny backed away, irritated.

The cutout, ‘Fire Safety Frankie’, was a yellow cartoon fire helmet with shiny red boots and a big toothy grin. It had been sent to all the stations in the county to help them deliver community safety briefings at local infant schools in a way that ‘appealed to the kids’. 

Johnny thought the thing was creepy as fuck. 

He stopped rearranging the contents of his locker and turned to glare at her. If there was anything more depressing than the prospect of three hours spent showing the old folks up at Rosemount House how to check the batteries in their smoke detectors for the fourth time in a year, it was the idea of spending the morning with a load of screaming kids full of questions.

Rob snorted with laughter at the look on his face, propping Fire Safety Frankie unceremoniously against the nearest table. She threw herself down into a chair with a dramatic huff, rummaging in the kit bag at her feet to make sure everything was still there since the last time it was used. 

She upended the bag onto the tabletop. A jumble of bits of paper, chewed crayons and colouring books covered in little sticky finger marks skittered out and onto the floor.

“Fuck’s sake, why does _no-one_ ever pack this thing up properly after they’ve used it?” she grouched under her breath, starting to sift through the mess to see what she could salvage. “Anyway, I’m sure you’ll have an absolutely _brilliant_ time up at Rosemount. Oooo I bet Joyce Batsly will go _all funny_ over Gheorghe . . .” 

“Fuckin’ Christ, she’ll be all over him,” Johnny groaned. 

Old Mrs Batsly was harmless, really. But she was infamous up at the sheltered housing centre for going ‘all funny’ over any man under the age of about 40 who dropped by. She’d completely overwhelmed many a postman, plumber and even the odd campaigning MP over the years. He still remembered the first time he’d had to pay a visit with Southall when he joined up. The poor sod had practically had to escape through the window to avoid death by Mrs Batsly’s cheek-pinching and buttered scones. 

Johnny cringed when he imagined what she’d make of charming, swarthy, mysterious Ionescu.

“What’s it to you if she _is_ all over him, anyway?” Rob prodded. She was stretched out on her belly on the floor by now, her legs crossed at the ankle, boots in the air, sorting felt tip pens into their proper boxes.

Johnny knew that tone. She may well be joking about Joyce Batsly, but that didn’t mean for a minute that she wasn’t onto him.

“Nowt,” he bit back, pretending to concentrate again on the contents of his locker. 

Rob got up with a groan and walked over, leaning against her own locker and gazing at him pointedly.

“John, y’know, you’re the loveliest bloke. I _know_ you and you’re lovely. And you could do some stuff to make it easier for yourself. People’ll find it easier to take to you if you try to be more, I dunno, approachable? Like sayin’ how-do, smilin’ and that, y’know? Folk _like_ that sort of thing.”

Johnny grabbed what he needed, slamming his locker door shut and staring her down.  
  
“Who says I want him to like me?” he asked defensively.

She cocked her head to the side with a wry smile, stepping forward, bringing her face closer to Johnny’s in challenge.

“Who says I’m talkin’ about _him_?” she whispered.

Blushing furiously, Johnny turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“Try talkin’ to him, John. You _can_ just talk to him. It ain’t that hard,” she called after him.

“Fuck off,” he grunted over his shoulder.

“Aye, love you too,” Rob sang back.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Johnny had checked the staff room, most of the stores, the briefing room. There was no sign of Ionescu. He knew he had no right to be pissed off about it. In the week they’d been working together Johnny had hardly made much of an effort to make him feel welcome. He’d probably given Ionescu good reason to make himself scarce.

Tramping down the stairs towards the gym he ran headlong into Rycroft. It wasn’t difficult to do. The guy was nearly as tall as Johnny and twice as wide, with no hesitation about taking up as much space as he felt the world owed him. 

“Saxby,” Rycroft acknowledged grouchily, his face ruddy and bunched into its usual scowl. 

“Rycroft,” Johnny answered unenthusiastically, “you seen Ionescu?”

“Nah. Long as he’s not sniffin’ round my sister again I don’t give a fuck _where_ he is,” Rycroft blustered.

Johnny stifled a snort. Rycroft wasn’t bright, and it showed. Ionescu hadn’t exactly lapped it up when Hayley had plastered herself over him at The Crown that night. But the only thing that would hit Rycroft’s ego harder than Ionescu giving the come-on to his sister would definitely be the thought that _he’d_ rejected _her_ advances.

No. Ionescu couldn’t possibly win either way in this situation.  

Johnny shrugged and turned to carry on down the stairs. He didn’t have the time or the energy to get into it with a thick-as-mince thug like Liam fucking Rycroft. Not today. He was knackered. Dad had had three bad nights in a row, which meant Johnny and Nan were running on next to no sleep. Tempers were frayed and that meant most days now began with arguments. He’d no need to go _looking_ for a fight. And anyway, he wanted to get this morning over with. The sooner he and Ionescu got to Rosemount, the sooner they’d be finished there.

“Roll on three months from now, eh? He can piss off back to London where he came from. Or better yet back to Bulgaria. Little enough work in this country for our own folk . . .” Rycroft called down to Johnny’s retreating back. 

“Romania,” Johnny corrected with a growl, the tips of his fingers prickling with an all-too-familiar urge to hit and smash.

“Whatever. Same thing,” Rycroft grunted, lumbering up the staircase.

Johnny thought back to what Houghton had said on Ionescu’s first day. He’d known what the boss was getting at. Blue Watch had more than its fair share of bigots, and he knew that part of his job as Ionescu’s partner was about keeping that kind of viciousness in check. 

When he reached the basement and pushed open the gym door, his mind emptied, the sight that greeted him halting him in his tracks.

“Umm . . . we . . .” 

Words stuck in his throat, refusing to shift.

Ionescu was doing press-ups in the middle of the room, his skin glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration. 

Johnny swallowed thickly when Ionescu eventually clocked him, just standing there staring like an idiot. 

He stood up, graceful and agile, his chest still rising and falling rapidly with exertion, and Johnny found himself wondering how it would feel to touch the muscles that were so invitingly visible under his t-shirt.

“I was just . . .” Ionescu began, gesturing around him.

Johnny coughed to clear his throat, looking everywhere but at Ionescu, forcing his left hand into his pocket, the right rubbing self-consciously at the back of his neck.

“Yeah. We’re . . . um, we need to leave. Ten minutes. Rosemount House, sheltered housin’. Safe and well checks. Told you it were the dull stuff up ‘ere, didn’t I?”

“This is no problem. I will shower. I will meet you upstairs in five minutes, yes?” 

Johnny nodded, nearly choking when Ionescu whipped off his t-shirt, standing there, right in front of him, topless and shining with sweat. 

He bolted out of the door and back up the stairs. 

If those five minutes waiting for Ionescu were spent in the toilet composing himself, trying to stop his heart racing, fighting the heat in his cheeks and willing his cock to behave, no-one needed to know.

  
  
\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

He’d had a bad feeling about the old banger they’d been allocated for the day as soon as he’d seen it.

All the station’s non-emergency vehicles were in a pretty bad way - replacing them was one on a long list of things that weren’t a ‘budgetary priority’. But the one Johnny had found himself driving them to Rosemount in was fit for nothing but scrap. 

He’d breathed a sigh of relief when it got them there without incident, and again when it had started after only the third attempt when they left. 

Of course it waited until they were smack bang in the middle of the country lanes route back to the station to finally die on them. 

“You take a look and I will call Robyn” Ionescu said, already on the phone to Rob to try to get them towed out of the mess they were in. 

Johnny knew it made perfect sense. Rob and Southall were the closest option; Hounsbury was much closer than the station. But he still felt a tingle of irritation; irritation at how quickly Ionescu had managed to form an easy bond with Johnny’s two closest friends. His only friends, really. 

Johnny popped open the bonnet and peered in, mainly to have something to do while they were hanging around. His skills as a mechanic were passable, but it was obvious the car was beyond help. 

Ionescu ended the call, updating Johnny that Rob and Southall - or _Jake_ , as he called him, without a hint of awkwardness - would be here as soon as they could, but that it could be about half an hour.

“Bastard!” Johnny shouted over him suddenly, dealing the bumper a hefty kick of frustration. He’d caught his hand on the jagged edge of the bonnet when he’d moved to close it, tearing the skin of his index finger.

Ionescu was at his side in a split second, dragging him to the back of the car and throwing open the boot, where a first aid kit was always stowed as a matter of process. 

He grabbed Johnny’s hand to inspect the cut, wiping at the wound with antiseptic before leafing through the kit for a plaster the right size.

He held Johnny’s hand gently, carefully placing the plaster, holding on for a few more seconds; seconds that seemed to stretch out and out as he tenderly examined Johnny’s fingers, thumb, knuckles, palm, even his wrist before letting go slowly. 

The touch turned Johnny’s knees to jelly.

“It is not deep. But you will need to be sure to keep it clean,” Ionescu said, his voice a purr as he looked deep into Johnny’s eyes. Johnny stood speechless and frozen, his pulse thumping in his ears. He felt like Ionescu was looking straight through him, right down to his bones.

Their gaze broke, and Johnny stumbled, stupified, back into the driver’s seat, Ionescu sliding in beside him. 

They stared out of the windscreen in silence at the view. They’d broken down on the top of a hill overlooking fields with the nearest town barely visible in the distance. Ionescu seemed to be considering the outlook particularly carefully. 

“It is very beautiful here, no?” he asked suddenly.

Johnny said nothing. He didn’t know what he should say; what he was _expected_ to say. No-one ever asked him questions like that. It _was_ beautiful, he supposed. The day was freezing cold and crisp, all oranges and browns. Johnny’s favourite kind of day, his favourite season.

“It was good to see that they have all of their equipment in that place. This is not always so in many places,” Ionescu pressed on.

“Aye, they’re not bad at Rosemount. Other places are worse,” Johnny agreed, biting his thumbnail, eyes fixed straight ahead. He dreaded situations like this. He’d been told time and time again that he had no conversation, and had long since stopped trying to fix that flaw in himself.

“Mrs Batsly is very . . . I do not know the word. She is very friendly, yes?”

“Aye,” Johnny sniggered. 

Old Batsly had been on her usual form during their visit. She’d looked at Ionescu with the gentleness of a grandmother as soon as they’d arrived, and by the time they’d left she was obviously half in love with him. 

Johnny knew he hadn’t done a good job of hiding his own sullenness during the visit.

Ionescu was silent again for a minute or two. Johnny could still smell the spicy freshness of his recently showered body, so close to him in the small space inside the car. The atmosphere felt like it was crushing him from every side. Every time Ionescu spoke, the gorgeous rumble felt like it was stroking a path down Johnny’s spine.

“Look, I . . . it must be more work for you, this . . . me. I understand that you may not have wished to do this. To work with me. That it is not good to feel that I am here to . . . criticise the work, yes?” 

“S’alright. Seems like you know what you’re doin’, like,” Johnny offered weakly, Rob’s advice echoing in his head, knowing it could only go so far to fixing how standoffish he’d been for the last week.

“You have always worked as a fireman?” 

“Aye. Me Dad did it, and me Grandad. Never thought about doin’ owt else,” Johnny answered, realising for the first time how true that really was; it really _hadn’t_ ever occurred to him that he wouldn’t grow up to do what the Saxbys always did. What they’d always done. 

“Your father, he is retired?”

“Yeah. He took early retirement year and half ago, after . . .” something in Johnny was screaming at him to _shut the fuck up_ , that he was handing over too much, more than Ionescu needed or wanted from him,  “. . . he can’t work no more,” he finished simply. 

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to . . . I am being rude.”

“It ain’t a secret. Me Mam died, comin’ up on two year ago. Dad took it hard and now he can’t work.”

He turned to look at Ionescu, who sat with wide, kind eyes and an open expression, saying nothing. 

“Hit and run,” Johnny continued. “She were walkin’ home from work, she worked in the bakery in town. Drunk guy hit her, didn’t stop. He’s gone away for it now. Only got four years in the end, mind.”

“That must have been hard.”

“We get on wi’ it. You always done this job?” Johnny threw back, hoping to change the subject. 

“Yes. In Romania. I had work on a building site in London for a while, when I arrived in this country, when I was still looking for work in the Fire Service. And I have been in the Fire Service in London since then. I came here with my . . . my ex-boyfriend. He went home to Romania but . . . I preferred to stay.”

Johnny’s hands were trembling. He’d felt it about Ionescu, of course, more or less from the start. But it didn’t dampen the thrill he got when he confirmed it. Ionescu was into blokes. Johnny hated himself for the pitiful flame of hope it kindled in his angry heart.

“I’m . . .” Johnny began before a sudden rap on the driver’s side window made him jump out of his skin.

“You two plannin’ on sittin’ in there gossipin’ all day?!” Rob jeered on the other side, her voice muffled by the glass.

Johnny turned back, and Ionescu looked into his eyes again, that deep, deliberate, penetrating gaze that made him feel stripped naked. The flicker of a smile played across Ionescu’s face just before he turned and got out of the car, taking hold of the tow rope that Southall was standing ready to pass to him. 

Johnny fought to keep from grinning. Ionescu had smiled at him. That smile, a true, real smile, had been for him. 

It was _his_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to make the (slightly obvious) point that some things in this story - the injury to Johnny's hand, some bits of dialogue - are lifted directly from the original storyline from the film. I've chosen to keep them in my AU (sometimes in a slightly altered form) because I feel they are poignant and really essential to Johnny and Gheorghe and who and what they are. I don't claim them as original to my own retelling, obviously!


	6. Gheorghe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’d been agonising for ages over what eventually became a humungous chapter from Gheorghe’s POV. I’ve decided the reason it wasn’t working is that it was never meant to all be one chapter. So I've split it. This chapter is quite short as a result, but the good news is that the next chapter, also from Gheorghe’s POV, is a fair bit longer, and is also very nearly ready for eyes other than mine. I’m hoping to get it online this weekend but I’m not making myself or anyone else any promises at the moment because, well, it’s just not the way my world is working out right now . . .

Gheorghe stirred a second generous teaspoon of sugar into the steaming mug of freshly-poured coffee. He smiled, shaking his head in disbelief. He’d never met anyone who liked their coffee quite the way John did, black as tar and eye-wateringly sweet.   
****

A mug in each hand, he turned from the kitchen counter and picked a careful path across the staff room to where John was sitting, his head hung low and shoulders slumped.

Gheorghe placed the heavily-sweetened coffee on the table in front of John, settling into the chair opposite him. He lifted his own mug to his lips, peering at John over the top of it. 

John looked down at the coffee, then glanced up at Gheorghe. His eyes were glassy and unfocused at first, then the corner of his mouth gave a bashful, lopsided twitch of realisation; one of his teasing half-smiles that were easily the prettiest thing Gheorghe had ever seen. 

Gheorghe’s breath caught at the sight of it, like it always seemed to when he thought he might have made John Saxby smile.

John lifted his coffee, his hands shaking, almost imperceptibly. He took a sip, and his eyes fell shut as he breathed a satisfied sigh and slowly laid the mug back down on the tabletop.

“You look very tired,” Gheorghe observed quietly, cringing inside at his flat attempt at small talk.

Gheorghe wasn’t a nervous talker by nature; in the last four weeks he’d learned that he and John both preferred silence to chat. But John’s unspoken gratitude for that small gesture - coffee made exactly the way he liked it - had left Gheorghe feeling like he _had_ to be talking. Or doing anything, really, that kept him from having to look directly into the brilliant light of the way that one smile from John had made him feel. 

He had to be doing _anything_ that stopped him from reaching his hand across the table to touch John’s the way he wanted to so badly.

Besides, it was true what he’d said. John had been looking more and more exhausted since Gheorghe had arrived, but the last few days he’d seemed particularly wrung out.

John picked at his nails, his expression closed and stony.

Gheorghe wasn't sure whether he'd get an answer.

It happened that day, three weeks earlier, when the car had broken down on the way back from Rosemount. Gheorghe knew that had been the day when things had changed between them. He’d felt something that resisted him whenever he tried to give it a name in his head. After that, John had, very slowly, begun to open up. Getting to where they were now, three weeks later, had still been painstaking. John’s words were still brief, and when they came they were as guarded as always. But Gheorghe had been hoarding them; every clue from John about what he was feeling and who he was and what he liked and what he didn’t. What made him smile and which foods he’d eat and which he absolutely wouldn’t eat and the way he liked his coffee. 

Rob had filled in quite a few of the gaps. Jake a few more. Gheorghe had stored away every morsel of information. He was doing battle with his own better judgement, every ounce of his common sense telling him to let this go, whatever the hell it was. Whatever he wanted to call it, it couldn’t possibly be a good idea. He missed Ioana. She'd think he'd gone completely mad if she knew even a little of what he'd been thinking. She'd tell him so, too.

But Gheorghe had been fascinated with John from his first day at the station, from that first sight of him in the briefing room. Common sense had never really stood a chance.

Looking back, that first week had been easier in many ways. John had shown few signs of wanting anything much to do with him, and Gheorghe wasn’t a horny teenager. He had enough self control, not to mention professionalism, to resist a hot workmate - particularly one who didn’t even like him very much. He _could_ resist him, even if he _was_ beautiful and intriguing and had an arse that looked like it had been made to fit in Gheorghe’s palms . . .

But that day, on the way back from Rosemount, infatuation had slapped Gheorghe right across the face. They’d been stranded together and John had opened up to him for the first time. Gheorghe had held onto his injured hand, realising with a cold thrill of fear that all he really wanted was to make it not hurt anymore. 

Gheorghe hadn’t slept a wink that night. He hadn’t been able to get comfortable, his mind racing, full to bursting with _John_.

No. After that there’d been no more point pretending to himself that he _didn’t_ have the biggest crush of his life. Since then it had really been more about keeping it a secret from everyone else. 

Anyway, it was three months. He’d only be there for _three months_. Not long. He could get over this, ride it out and leave in January with no harm done. Every few days he’d renew his resolve to stop thinking about it, to give the whole stupid thing a fighting chance to fade away. Then he’d see John again and that promise to himself would crumble away to nothing every time.

John had drifted his way into Gheorghe’s fantasies like air into his lungs. He was only ever going to be able to hold his breath for so long before he’d be gasping for more again. 

“M’alright," John muttered eventually, his voice gravelly with fatigue. "Dad just had another rough night,” he took another big gulp of coffee and fidgeted in his seat.

Gheorghe nodded, assessing John carefully, letting his gaze explore and probe and rest and linger. 

John looked like he could lay down right there on the staff room floor and sleep the shift out. He was looking gaunt, too, his always-prominent cheekbones even more severe than usual. It wasn’t so surprising - he was always running around and seemed to live on hastily-inhaled junk food and lager. An early night, a good sleep and a home-cooked meal would probably make him feel a lot better.

They had a run of three days off starting tomorrow. Gheorghe hoped that maybe John would catch up on his rest then. Not that he’d know. He probably wouldn’t even see him again until they got back to work later in the week.

He felt his affection sour under a wave of guilt and shame. The thought of not seeing John for three days made him feel wretched, and knowing he had no right to feel that way just made him feel worse. 

He tried to go easy on himself. After all, he didn’t make a habit of developing sick fixations on his colleagues. In fact, Gheorghe made it a policy never to mix work and his private life any more than strictly necessary. He hadn’t _planned_ for John to become someone he looked forward to seeing at the start of his shift. Just like he hadn’t planned for John to become someone he wanted to make coffee just right for, or make smile, or keep safe, either. 

He could tell himself it was only sensible to try to keep his closest colleague healthy and well, of course - no doubt if John got sick Gheorghe would have to pick up his slack, or at least some of it. But Gheorghe had never been very good at self-delusion. Until now, anyway.

He thought back to that day, before they left for Rosemount, about the way he’d pulled his shirt off in the gym right there in front of John. It had been a sadistic act of self-torment. He’d done it because he’d wanted to see that glorious hot blush rise on John’s cheeks. He hadn’t been disappointed. The whole thing had had him wanking himself insane for days afterwards. The thought of where it all went in his wildest fantasies, where John didn’t run away to wait for him upstairs but stayed, walking slowly over to where Gheorghe was standing, running his fingers lightly down Gheorghe’s bare chest, taking his hand and leading him to the showers . . . 

So much for professional. The way he felt about John had left his rational game plan for getting through his three-month secondment in tatters. Gheorghe could see he was completely screwed. 

“He . . . still does not sleep well?” he pressed gently after a while, already knowing the answer but desperate to reassure John he was listening. Desperate to urge him to share.  

John focused on a point over Gheorghe’s shoulder, his mouth slightly open, his expression something between temptation and wariness. John always avoided making eye contact. Gheorghe could remember every time he had looked into those eyes since the day they met, because every time had felt like a jolt of electricity to his chest. Most of them had been times when Gheorghe had caught John looking at him, as if he’d been about to say something but thought better of it. Every time, John had looked away as if he’d been caught doing something shameful. 

John looked down again before he spoke, slumping further into his seat like a grumpy teenager and thumbing absentmindedly at an invisible mark on the tabletop. Gheorghe watched, fascinated, as the fine bones in John’s wrist moved under his pale, calloused skin. He’d seen John working at callouts, lifting gear and running with it at full pelt, all while hardly breaking a sweat. He was hard and solid and strong. But he also had flawless, sculpted bone structure and vulnerable, expressive eyes and glowing skin.

John Saxby was made of heartbreaking beauty as well as strength.

“Dreams again. Nightmares, like. He . . . it’s like he can’t properly tell if he’s awake or not. They reckon it’s all to do wi’ his stroke, he . . . keeps forgettin’ me Mam’s gone, then he comes round to it . . .”

“You . . . do you think . . . ?” Gheorghe hesitated.

“What?” John asked defensively, squaring his shoulders.

“There is no help? Some . . . _care_?”

“He ain’t a fuckin’ old man, he can’t go into a home,” John snapped, his whole posture stiffening.

 _Fuck,_ Gheorghe thought, wishing he could kick himself. He could already feel John backing off. 

He didn’t _want_ him to back off.

“No . . . no that is not what I meant,” he stammered out quickly.

John’s shoulders relaxed slightly, his face falling into something that could perhaps have been an apology. 

“We can manage. We don’t need help. We . . . we look after our own round our way.”

“John . . .”

“I can manage,” he growled, his bloodshot eyes meeting Gheorghe’s own, stubborn at first, then softening a little. “D’you know Houghton nearly partnered you wi’ Rob? When you got ‘ere, like. She’d’ve done all this better than me,” he mumbled.

“I am glad he chose you,” Gheorghe answered slowly. He held his gaze, watching that blush that made him weak at the knees rising to John’s cheeks again. 

A smile lifted up unbidden from somewhere deep in Gheorghe’s core, just as the tense air of the staff room ripped apart with the familiar high-pitched wail of the bells going down.


	7. Gheorghe

Jake handled the rig through the traffic as effortlessly as always, as if driving a fire engine weighing well over 20 tonnes, at speed, was the easiest thing in the world.

But Gheorghe was still anxious. It was the crew manager in him, trained to always be two steps ahead of the game. 

He mulled it over. Jake and Rob up front and him and John in the back made an appliance crewed by four. It was the smallest crew they were allowed to take out. They were three of the best, most competent colleagues he could hope to be on a callout with, but even taken together the four of them were still only what they were - human beings who could only do so much. 

He ran quickly through all the _what-ifs_ in his head, before arriving, inevitably, at the only real conclusion - that whatever happened, there _were_ only four of them. If it turned out more were needed, well, they’d just have to deal with that at the time. Where they’d get extra bodies from if they needed them, he had no idea. The service was stretched to breaking point, and their response area was huge compared to the resources they had at their disposal. It wasn’t ideal but this, Gheorghe knew all too well, was the reality of the job these days.

Rob’s voice called back to Gheorghe and John from the cab.

“OK, so, vehicle extrication . . . drink driver,” she said. Her voice sounded strained suddenly, and she cleared her throat before carrying on. “Overturned BMW on Hapley Road eastbound at Oxworth. Paramedics’ve got him collared but they can’t do anymore while doors are a no-go.”

“Probably iced up there, too,” Jake put in. “That bend’s a nightmare this time o’ year.”

“Yeah,” John sneered under his breath. “‘Specially if you’re a prick in a showy motor and you’re pissed off your head.”

They all lapsed into a tense silence, but Gheorghe swore he could actually hear John’s mind whirring, his fury cornered and coiled, waiting to strike. 

Gheorghe wanted to tell him it would all be OK, but he couldn’t when he didn’t know that it was true. 

What _was_ true was that John, who had lost his own mother to a drink driver less than two years ago, had to go and help another one now, because it was his job. It was _true_ that he would probably be remembering his mother the whole time, but that he still had to do it, and do it properly. All those things meant that nothing about this situation could ever really, honestly be OK.

They came up promptly on the crash site and Jake brought the engine to a stop, parking up horizontally to help create a partial road block. It was a sensible move. The last thing they needed right now was more careless drivers running into the back of the crash they were already up to their eyes trying to clear. 

Jake and Rob leapt out and headed towards the scene without a moment’s hesitation. Gheorghe thought, not for the first time, what a perfect, well-honed team the two of them made.

He took a moment to look over at John, into his eyes, giving him a tight smile that he hoped told him that he understood how hard this all must be. He wanted John to feel how much he was there with him - even if _there_ was a waking nightmare right now.

John stunned him with a steely, self-possessed look that Gheorghe knew could have turned him into a begging, trembling mess in more pleasant circumstances.

“S’alright,” John said, suddenly looking away, the way he always did. “It ain’t the first . . . since . . . s’not a problem,” he blurted, jumping to his feet and out onto the road after his crew-mates.

The police and an ambulance crew had beat them to it by a few minutes. Erratic tyre tracks scarring the road spelled out where the shiny black BMW had lost control. Gheorghe looked over to see the car itself lying upturned against the grass verge. A few of the police were taking statements from visibly distressed witnesses, while the others managed oncoming traffic. It was something that Gheorghe had learned was the same everywhere - the occupants of passing cars never seemed able to resist a peek at a car crash. Human nature could be a peculiar and disturbing thing.

One of the paramedics identified Gheorghe as crew leader and rushed over to him. A bearded, red-headed guy, he looked like he could probably be the laughing, fun, outgoing type in any other situation, but he still began briefing Gheorghe in the dry and practical way that was standard. 

“One male, mid-thirties, no passengers nor anyone else involved, thank God. It’s obvious the daft bastard is way over the limit,” he grumbled. “Possible head trauma. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed outright, witnesses in the car behind said he came round that corner like Lewis Hamilton runnin’ late. We’ll know the full score when you folks dig him out for us.”

Gheorghe gave a terse nod and turned to tell John, Rob and Jake to lay powder - there was no way they could even think about cracking out the tools until they'd ruled out a petrol fire, and he’d already spied a worrying-looking spill on the side of the road near to where the car was laying. He opened his mouth to call to them, but Rob was already on it, John and Jake hastily unpacking chocks and cutters and spreaders and jaws and all the other gear they’d need for the job.

They got underway, and the rest became a blur to Gheorghe. He’d always gone into a kind of autopilot on callouts; a focus on action and muscle memory that helped him to work, a sort of flow that kept him right. He looked over at John regularly, trying to read how he was doing. He was sure he was being obvious about it - he knew he wasn’t half as switched on to how Jake and Rob were doing - but he found he no longer cared very much about pretending not to. John, though, was working to the book, without any slip-ups at all. 

They stabilised the car then started to take it apart from around the driver. Before Gheorghe knew it the paramedics had the guy intubated, the team had him out of the car and authority was passed to the police. 

Gheorghe checked his watch. The whole thing had taken about 40 minutes. It had felt like half of that at most.

He felt some of the tension leave his shoulders, the adrenaline beginning to wane. People asked all the time how he stayed calm in situations that could so easily go wrong - that _did_ go wrong, sometimes. Gheorghe’s emotional reactions, the _feelings_ , happened afterwards. He remembered his first house fire death on scene. It was only when he’d got home to his flat and into his lonely bed at the end of the shift that the reality had hit him, and he’d cried. 

They watched the ambulance race away and began to stow the gear. Gheorghe gazed at John for a moment, not really caring if anyone saw. He wondered how John would feel later, when all of this was done, when he lay in _his_ bed and had to brace himself against all the crushing weight of another difficult day.

 

\- - - - - - - - - -

 

Gheorghe sat with John on the bench out front of the station, waiting for Rob and Jake. The end of John’s cigarette glowed in the darkness, their breath making clouds in the night air. They sat in silence, but that wasn’t unusual. It was a sort of easy, restful silence that didn’t cry out to be filled, where they could be together and enjoy the relief of the shift being done.

Gheorghe felt the heat of John’s thigh leaching through the fabric of his jeans and realised how close they were sitting together. Feeling John pressed to his side made his skin burn hot despite the freezing cold. 

He turned his face upwards, picking out constellations in the sky in an attempt to stop his mind from racing ahead of him.

“I can see so much more in the sky here. In London there is . . . much more light. Light from the ground, yes? I have not seen so many stars there.”

John passed his lit cigarette to Gheorghe who paused before taking it from him, their fingers brushing. He took it with a shaking hand, inhaling a drag, letting himself absorb the excitement of touching his lips to this thing that had rested between John’s just a moment ago; the lightheaded _intimacy_ of it all.

“I like the dark,” said John. “Night-time, like. Me mam used to say I were the only kid she’d ever heard of who went round the house turnin’ lights _off_ instead of leavin’ them on. I were happy to sit in the dark. Think they fretted about it for a while, thought I were a bit weird . . .”

Gheorghe smiled. “Today . . . must have been hard for you.”

John was silent again for what felt like minutes. He took a final drag of their shared cigarette before extinguishing it under the sole of his shoe.

“It ‘appens,” he muttered quietly, exhaling a final cloud of smoke. “Part o’ the job. Can’t pick and choose. He weren’t the first and he won’t be the last. Least he only fucked _himself_ up . . .”

“Yes. But . . .”

Gheorghe’s heart flipped over behind his ribs at the sudden warm, crushing sensation on his left thigh. He looked down to see John’s right hand gripping at his leg, hard, as if he might fall to his death if he let it go. 

John was staring at his own hand, there on Gheorghe’s leg, with an expression of drowsy curiosity, his mouth slightly open, teeth worrying at his bottom lip.

They locked eyes and stared at each other, Gheorghe’s leaden tongue refusing to form words. His own left hand twitched, yearning to cover John’s, to entwine their fingers, or perhaps just to squeeze and reassure him that yes, this _was_ what Gheorghe wanted. That it was actually what he'd started wanting so badly he felt like his body didn’t really answer to his mind anymore. That it was fine and it didn’t matter why John was doing this because it was just _now_ and just _them_ and it was lovely. 

But nothing, no part of Gheorghe would move, for fear the moment would slip away.

“Come on then, you two! It’ll be last orders before we’re through the door of the pub at this rate!”

Rob’s voice cut through the still air, breaking the spell. 

Gheorghe turned to see her and Jake pacing towards the bench, Jake with his hands forced into his jeans pockets and Rob with her trademark skip. 

John snatched his hand away, lifting himself to his feet and loping his way towards the two of them as if he _hadn’t_ just left Gheorghe in total free-fall. 

Gheorghe got up and followed slowly, not quite trusting his shaking knees to hold his weight, feeling the ghost of John’s warm palm still there on his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that while I have to tried to research so that the firefighting detail is at least credible, I am conscious that I'm taking a few creative liberties! I've also added a few tags today to prepare readers for content in future chapters.


	8. Gheorghe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more quick chapter for Gheorghe - the next one will be Johnny!

John seemed different somehow. There were still those tell-tale dark circles under his tired eyes but his pale skin had a healthier colour about it than it had that morning. He was pacing his drinks - compared to the way he normally drank, at least - and Gheorghe even noticed him tittering quietly at a few of Rob’s silly jokes. He seemed almost . . . _relaxed_.

Gheorghe was preoccupied, wondering whether it was possible he’d imagined everything that had happened on that bench outside the station less than an hour ago, whether it could even just be a combination of wishful thinking and end of shift exhaustion.

But he could _feel_ it between them. He still couldn’t have named it, but he couldn’t understand how the people all around them seemed not to have noticed it; the crackling, vibrating _thing_ in the air that seemed so strong, so obvious to him. He and John were pressed together under the pub table just like they’d been on that bench. Gheorghe tried to hang on to what Rob and Jake were saying, resisting the mad, wild temptation to reach beneath and trace patterns with his finger on John’s thigh, running his hand up and up to . . . 

“Ooooo It’s Gheorghe! How are _you_ , love?!”

Gheorghe’s heart sank. He looked up to see a now all-too-familiar blonde head of hair come staggering through the crowded pub, making a beeline for him. 

Since they’d met, Hayley Rycroft had never missed an opportunity to flirt with him whenever she sniffed him out at The Crown. Gheorghe had done his best to be polite to her over the last month. So far he only seemed to have succeeded in encouraging her.

The awkward self-consciousness of it was bad enough, but it had started threatening to make his working life more difficult, too. Gheorghe could _feel_ eyes on him, gazes even more hostile and intense than usual for The Crown. Sure enough, as Hayley moved to plant herself in the seat to Gheorghe’s right, he looked up to see Liam Rycroft and his friends shooting furious stares at him from where they were standing, draped casually against the bar. 

“And how’s the best looking fireman in Yorkshire?” she crooned into his ear, her hot, sticky breath assailing his skin.

His world shrank to the smell of Hayley’s sickly, heavy perfume in his nostrils and the equally heavy feeling of John’s rage throbbing beside him. Gheorghe could feel himself losing his composure. He was claustrophobic and far too warm and _God_ he wanted to be alone with John.

He locked eyes with Rob across the table, who gave him a brisk nod of understanding. 

“Come to the bar wi’ me a sec, Hayls,” Rob urged, heaving a protesting Hayley back to her feet.  

“Aww, I just sat down,” Hayley whined as Rob guided her to the crowded bar, looking over her shoulder and throwing Gheorghe a reassuring look that he answered with a grateful smile. He was impressed, and not for the first time, by how much power Rob seemed to pack for so small a person. 

John stood up abruptly, fumbling for his cigarette packet in the pocket of his jeans and striding angrily out of the pub.

“Didn’t look too happy, did he?” Jake quipped as they both watched him leave.

“He does not seem to like Hayley very much?” Gheorghe asked.

“Well she _is_ hard work, let’s be honest,” Jake scoffed in response.

“I have perhaps not been clear with her. That . . . she is not my type?” Gheorghe worried a beer mat between his fingers as he spoke.

Jake rolled his eyes. “Look, mate, you haven’t been leading her on or owt. Don’t fret about it, yeah? Rob’ll distract her. Why don’t you go out and see if his lordship is alright?”

“You . . . do not think he would prefer to be alone?”

“I don’t, no.” Jake threw back with a knowing smile.

Gheorghe found John tucked into a corner outside the pub entrance. He was backed against a wall, smoking but with one arm stretched defensively across his own body, a slender black-haired boy leering over him. Gheorghe needled with anger. It was obvious John was uncomfortable, and he didn’t believe for a moment that the boy speaking to him hadn’t noticed it. 

The boy looked Gheorghe up and down as he paced towards them, his roving eyes wide and hungry as if he’d spotted something tempting in a shop window. 

The boy leaned towards John again. “ . . . bring this one too, if you want. I’m pretty open-minded,” he smirked, jerking his head towards Gheorghe.

John looked straight at him, his gaze murderous. “I told you. I won’t tell you again. No,” he said, turning on his heel to put out his cigarette, nearly knocking the boy off his feet in the process.

The boy stumbled back, tilting Gheorghe a languid wink before walking away. Gheorghe stared after him, determined to make it perfectly clear that he was watching; that he was looking out for John.

“Everything is OK?” Gheorghe asked when the boy had rounded the corner.

“Aye,” John snapped. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Gheorghe gestured with his head towards where the boy had just disappeared out of sight.

John leaned back against the wall, sighing. 

“Aye. I . . . we . . . a while back. He wanted to . . . catch up, told him no. He’s the type that takes tellin’ more than once . . .”

Gheorghe felt himself seethe with anger and jealousy as John sloped slowly past him and made his way back into the pub. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out John was gay, but being confronted with someone who had been with him, touched him . . .

When Gheorghe went back in he saw that Rob had returned and was chatting with Jake while John looked on, pint in hand. She’d clearly managed to give Hayley the slip at some point. Gheorghe didn’t have the energy to ask how. He just wanted to sit with the people he had learned to think of as friends and try to fight his way out of his own head for a few hours.

 

\- - - - - - - - - -

 

Midnight found the four of them camped out in the living room of Gheorghe’s flat, eating the saltiest, greasiest chips Gheorghe had ever encountered. They were all belly-laughing tipsily as Rob tried, and failed, to walk in a straight line in an attempt to prove she wasn’t drunk.

It gave Gheorghe a surprising comfort to look around and see them there in his place; between the three of them they lent it a cosiness and life that it lacked when he was there alone. He had a few friends back in London, but there’d always been a sort of formality there, somehow - a tension that made him reluctant to have them in his personal space, preferring to keep his distance. 

It didn’t feel like that tonight. He’d welcomed John, Rob and Jake in without hesitation or awkwardness, and he felt sure it wasn’t just the beer that had made him do it.

“Look! Are you looking?! I can do it, I’m not that pissed!” Rob squeaked, just as she wrong-footed herself and managed to tumble, surprisingly elegantly, into Jake’s waiting lap on the sofa. 

Gheorghe stifled a chuckle at the look on Jake’s face. He was gawping at Rob sitting there in his arms as if she’d put the moon in the sky single-handedly. Gheorghe spotted John rolling his eyes at the scene, but he caught the little smile that followed, too. 

“Nice flat this, mate,” Jake said to Gheorghe, giving an awkward cough as he seemed to come to his senses and removed his hands from where they’d been around Rob’s waist.

“Yes. It is close to the station and mostly quiet. A little small, but big enough for me.” He thought self-consciously about how little there actually was in the flat. Only the essential furniture, no clutter. For a moment it concerned him that he must have seemed very dull.

“You’ve got a sister haven’t you? She back in London?” Rob asked Gheorghe. She got up from Jake’s lap and righted herself, taking a seat on the rug and leaning back on her arms. 

“Yes . . . no, in Romania. Ioana. And I have a nephew, Iosif, and a niece, Odeta,” Gheorghe added with a smile.

“D’you get to go back to see them that often?” she asked.

“No. Not often,” he answered sadly. “I have a photograph . . .” he said, trailing off.

“Oh, let’s see!” Rob chirped. 

Gheorghe padded through to the bedroom. With a wistful smile he lifted the framed photograph of Ioana and the children gently from his bedside table and returned to the living room.

Rob had moved to settle on the floor between Jake’s legs, showing him something on her phone. Gheorghe handed the photograph to her, and she took it with a smile, Jake peering over her to see better. His hand hesitated over Rob’s shoulder for a moment before he apparently thought better of it and brought it to rest on his own leg again instead.

John was sitting next to Jake, but leaning away, right up against the arm of the sofa, leaving ample space between them. Gheorghe compared it all to how closely he and John had been pressed together on that bench earlier, and at The Crown . . .

“Gheorghe she’s _gorgeous_ ,” Rob crooned. “John, look.” She passed the photograph up to John who took it carefully.

John nodded agreement with a thoughtful twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Looks like you,” he grunted, glancing at Gheorghe.

Gheorghe couldn’t help it - he beamed, blushing. 

Rob took the photograph back from John, getting up to place it ceremoniously on the mantlepiece.

She turned to Gheorghe. “Right come on, my lovely, let me help you clean up!” she sang, regarding the glasses and mugs and chip papers scattered on the coffee table in front of them.

“No, please, it’s fine, I can do this,” Gheorghe urged her.

“Nope, come on,” she said in that voice she had that Gheorghe knew wouldn’t be contradicted.

She grabbed a handful of greasy chip paper in one hand and two mugs by the handle in the other. Still unsteady on her feet, she headed out of the living room towards the kitchen with a similarly laden Gheorghe in tow, while Jake headed for the bathroom. 

As soon as they got into the kitchen she put everything down and rounded on Gheorghe, her expression anxious.

“Gheorghe, don’t . . . you won’t break his heart, will you? He’s lost so much, been through so much already. He’s . . . I dunno, built himself into a place he thinks is safe . . .” Rob’s voice broke, a tear gathering in the corner of her eye.

“Robyn, w-“ Gheorghe started, bewildered, just as Jake came stumbling into the kitchen, interrupting them.

“Shall we get you home then, Bambi?” he taunted at Rob, shooting Gheorghe an apologetic look before taking hold of Rob’s arm and leading her back down the hallway. Gheorghe wondered how much he’d heard before he came in, how much they both knew about the way he was feeling.

“John, we’re -“ Rob called as the three of them walked back into the living room, stopping short when they saw John, right there where they’d left him on the sofa, his head to one side, fast asleep. 

Gheorghe felt himself melt just looking at him. 

Robyn made a move to wake him, but Gheorghe put out a gentle hand to stop her.

“He . . . I will get him blankets. He can stay here. Let him . . . let him sleep,” Gheorghe whispered. 

“Sure?” Jake asked. 

Gheorghe nodded, and Rob gave his arm a grateful squeeze.

He saw Rob and Jake to the door, saying his goodbyes before heading to the living room window to watch them tottering off comically down the road together and out of view. 

Moving around the flat carefully so as not to wake John, he dug out some spare blankets from the airing cupboard, returning to the living room and gently laying them over him as he slept soundly on the sofa. A part of him fought the urge to kiss the little frown lines on John’s sleeping forehead; the same part that was terrified to accept the way he looked like he belonged just where he was, on Gheorghe’s sofa, in Gheorghe’s flat. In Gheorghe’s _life_.

Gheorghe thought back to what Rob had been trying to say in the kitchen, wondering what the hell to make of it all. When he’d left London, he’d planned to bring back with him only what he’d left with. No more, no less. He wasn’t sure he was ready to hand John Saxby his heart to smash. But sitting there watching him as he slept, Gheorghe knew in his bones that he was just too far gone; that his feelings were irrational and inexplicable the way the strongest and most real feelings always seemed to be. 

No. He _wasn’t_ sure he was ready to let John break his heart - but he wasn’t sure there was a thing he could do about it now.


	9. Johnny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up from where we left off, and it's over to our Johnny . . .

Johnny slumped forward, reaching idly between his knees to claw a handful of leaves from the ground. Sinking back again, he uncurled his fingers, watching as a few of them tumbled away. He stared at the ones left sitting in his palm, passing his thumb over them. They were soft, almost leathery.

They weren’t those dry, crisp leaves that sounded a crunch when he stepped on them during the walks in the dark he enjoyed at this time of year. These were the kind of wilted, mulchy leaves that seemed to be everywhere in the back garden right now. They were like a suffocating blanket of sludge that sat over everything, waiting for spring and summer to arrive, to gradually cook it all off to dust and crumble it away. 

He dropped the soggy mess to the floor, rubbing his grimy hand on the leg of his jeans before reaching into his pocket for his ciggies and lighting up. 

Johnny’d managed to mow the lawn a few times over the summer. He usually only bit _that_ bullet after days of having Nan on his back about how it must look to the neighbours had finally worn him away. Eventually he’d get it done, his teeth gritted and his heart switched off. 

He could just about take care of the practical stuff like that, but Mam hadn’t handed him down her flair for gardening.

The garden had been her labour of love. With her gone, Johnny had felt torn between keeping it in some sort of order and not changing anything, crushed by the feeling that nothing he did would be quite like the way she would have done it. Not as _right_. Never quite as it was meant to be. 

The result of it all was that something that had been beautiful once had gone almost completely to seed. The lavender hadn’t been cut back and was choked with weeds. Johnny hadn’t known he _should_ cut it back until the whole thing had become a huge, deformed, matted mess he couldn’t bear to look at, much less take a shears to. Two of the daffodils she’d loved so much had returned the spring just gone, weakened but determined. The rest seemed to have succumbed to his lack of attention.

He looked around, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do - where the fuck he was ever meant to make a _start_. 

His gaze landed on the wooden fence that separated their garden from Mrs Blackstock’s next door. There’d been high winds back in October, and some of the slats had fallen away on one side. The green paint Mam had chosen had flaked away from the beams, giving them a scaly, diseased look. Rusty nails stuck out angrily here and there, and the whole thing creaked threateningly whenever there was a strong breeze. 

From where he was sitting, Johnny could see straight through to Mrs Blackstock’s immaculate flowerbeds. He suspected a fear of awkwardness was the only reason she hadn’t complained about the fence yet; that she understood that the garden had been Annie’s space and she just didn’t know how to bring it up without coming off as a grumpy old hag. A part of Johnny wished she _would_ just say something. He wished she would come round and make a huge fuss and then he could force himself to sort it all out, seizing on the energy of a new-found bitterness towards the neighbours. 

Gradually, rage had become the power behind everything Johnny thought and did. At least, until Gheorghe arrived . . .  

The pond was a lost cause. That was what she’d been working on when she’d gone. Dad had helped with the digging. Johnny remembered a boiling hot day, unusually hot for early spring in Yorkshire. He’d been getting ready to head out when he’d glanced out of his bedroom window to see them working away in silence in the sunshine. They’d both seemed contented, absorbed in the work, as if in that moment their whole world was that one job they were trying to accomplish together. They’d looked like two halves of something really rare and special. Johnny had felt like he’d always be outside of that. He hadn’t been able to imagine ever being that close to another person, the fulfillment and safety and joy of it all.

Eventually they’d sunk the pond liner and she’d started picking out some stone ornaments she liked. They were mostly bits and pieces gathered from boot sales and trips to garden centres in the countryside they visited on their days out in the car. They’d always tried to make time for being together, just the two of them, every Sunday, provided Dad wasn’t working. The car sat in the driveway out the front now, going pretty much untouched for weeks on end. With work a walk away and no social life, Johnny had hardly any use for it, and Dad’s stroke had put paid to him driving. He supposed they should get rid of it, really. 

She’d been planning to get a few tench, so she and Dad could sit here on the loveseat together and watch them cutting and slipping smoothly through the water. She hadn’t got round to it; she’d been worried about the local cats terrorising the fish. She’d liked cats. She’d liked all animals. But “not sure it’s fair to tempt them like that when they’re only doing what they’re meant to” was what she’d said. Dad had been reluctant, too, but only because he could imagine how devastated she’d have been to go out one morning to find the fish ripped to bits by Mrs Hunt’s crafty ginger tom. 

The loveseat hadn’t been treated since she’d died either, so the rotting wood bent and creaked under Johnny’s weight where he sat. He looked into the water. It was soupy and green with algae. The hardiest fish on earth wouldn’t last five minutes in there the way it was. At the far side of the pond, the merry round face of the Celtic Green Man statue she’d put in pride of place stared back at him, looking more like a monster from a horror film now, faded and eroded, disfigured by weeds and a layer of slime. 

Dad hadn’t been out here at all since she’d died. At first he _wouldn’t._ Then, after a while, as he got sicker and more closed in, it was more that he _couldn’t_. From time to time, Johnny would feel an acidic, burning resentment at him for it. But at the same time found he could understand, in some vague way. He understood that Dad couldn’t even look out of the kitchen window at the garden; that it meant touching what was left of his Annie. It meant looking straight at his grief, and doing that would break him. It would fill up his head with memories and his heart with pain and he couldn’t take that pain and breathe at the same time. 

Part of Dad probably thought that all the things the garden meant, what it represented, could be enough to kill him off inside once and for all. 

Johnny had learned that grief was a weird and unpredictable thing. Dad wouldn’t be parted from the picture of Mam in the living room. Nan had suggested moving it once a few months ago and Dad had had a complete meltdown. He hadn’t spoken for days afterwards. But at the same time he couldn’t bear even to look at the garden. It had taught Johnny that you could go half mad trying to make sense of grief. Some things just wouldn’t take the shape you wanted them to. You could kick and scream and shout all you liked, but there it was.

Johnny felt a lump in his throat and a stinging behind his eyes. He held his head in his hands. He was angry with himself for coming out here, for thinking it could possibly help to clear his mind. Dad was right to avoid the garden, he thought bitterly - Mam was everywhere out here, and it left him feeling like an open wound. His thoughts felt like they were splitting his head open down the middle. Thoughts of Mam. Of Dad and Nan, the house, the bills, the mess of their lives. Of Rob and Jake and the job and the future. Thoughts of Gheorghe . . . 

He lifted his head and looked down at his hands again. They were grubby and calloused. There was still a fine line where he’d cut his finger that day, when Gheorghe had cleaned it for him and covered it with a plaster, examining his hand like it was treasure. The cut hadn’t been deep. The mark itself probably wouldn’t last, but Johnny found he liked that it was there. In his moments of doubt it confirmed the whole thing had happened; that it wasn’t just in his head. A scar he could see, and a memory he could feel.

He wasn’t sure he’d taken it all in yet, that he’d woken at 5am that morning to find himself warm on the couch at Gheorghe’s flat. That he’d come round to the hug of soft, warm blankets, squinting with bleary, barely open eyes to see Gheorghe fast asleep on the chair next to the sofa, as if he’d been keeping some sort of vigil, even though he must have had a decent bed in the next room. 

Johnny’d got up, quickly folding the blankets and creeping out of the flat to avoid waking Gheorghe because he hadn’t had a fucking clue what the hell he’d say to him if he did. He wasn’t ready. Besides, he’d needed to get back. Nan had had to manage all night without him. If he got his arse in gear at least he’d be back in time to help get breakfast together for Dad. Thank Christ he hadn’t drunk himself completely senseless. His head was a bit fuzzy and his neck slightly stiff from sleeping on the sofa but apart from that he’d been more or less with it when he woke. 

He’d felt like he’d wanted to stay with the land of the living last night. He’d wanted to spend time, real time, with Gheorghe, and when he’d got comfortable there on the sofa it was tiredness, not being dead drunk, that had pulled him into sleep. 

Feeling small with guilt, he’d doubled down on his efforts to help Nan when he got back, irritated by her icy silence but at the same time glad that he didn’t have to answer any of her questions about where he’d been. Then he’d wandered the house all day, in a stunned trance, before the garden had seemed like the only place left for him to haunt.

Johnny couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a drink without meaning to get drunk, but he knew the change was about Gheorghe. It was about the way that somehow, in the last few weeks, Johnny had started _living_ the way he felt about Gheorghe. The way he’d dreaded being partnered with him when he arrived seemed like it belonged to another lifetime. It was all swallowed up in wanting to be around him now, even if they just did nothing. He’d started wanting those moments, not just for them to be forgotten by the morning, but to keep and remember. 

He couldn’t stop wanting _more_.

He tilted his face up to the sky, and thought of the way Gheorghe had held on to his hand that day when he’d cut his finger. The shared smiles and little conversations. The spicy, clean scent of him close by, the way his black hair always seemed to look soft and just-fucked and presentable all at the same time. The way he’d looked at him, his dark eyes sparkling with something like desire, when Johnny had laid his hand on his thigh last night. The way Johnny’s palm had felt like it was drinking in the heat from Gheorghe, a need for touch he didn’t know he had in him being quenched like a fierce thirst. He remembered the way Gheorghe’s hard muscle had felt, and the way that touch, that connection, had made Johnny want to fall headlong into a fantasy of Gheorghe pounding at him, claiming him, holding onto him with every bone and bulge and sinew of his gorgeous body, filling and containing him. 

Johnny’s chest was tight, his breathing coming out jagged and laboured. He knew there was something deranged in him now, something that would follow Gheorghe into hell just to make these little things keep happening. It wouldn’t let the self-preserving part of him rest. It wouldn’t let him be free of the pointless dream of him and Gheorghe together. 

He felt physically sick at the thought of how close Gheorghe had already come to seeing how fucked up Johnny's life really was. His skin crawled when he remembered how near that prick he’d once shagged had been to Gheorghe outside the pub. Giving Gheorghe the come-on, peeling his clothes off with his eyes. Johnny couldn’t remember ever feeling seething shame and fury the way he’d felt it then. He didn’t want Gheorghe touched by any of that. He didn’t want him anywhere near it. He didn’t want wholesome Gheorghe, who’d won round Rob and Jake and Houghton, that unflappable, flawless light in his dark, shitty life, Gheorghe who made him coffee just right and just because he wanted to, dirtied by _any_ of that. 

Gheorghe was in a different world to that. Gheorghe asked about Dad and Nan and actually listened when Johnny told him the truth about how they were all doing, making it feel like things could be OK without ever making his feelings and fears seem small. Gheorghe’s silences felt warm in a way Johnny thought might be happiness. He kept a photograph of the family he loved ready to show to new friends, and rode out Johnny’s quick temper with unfailing kindness. He made Johnny feel like he _mattered_. Gheorghe was committed to doing his job well, he liked scenic views and quiet ciggies and stargazing, and Johnny didn’t want him sullied by the truth of his own lonely, seedy life. And Johnny didn’t want Gheorghe to know that the only way he could get off now was by picturing Gheorghe’s hands, his eyes and muscles and voice reaching into every corner of his imagination. Just the memory of that day in the gym, when Gheorghe had stood there in front of him, bare-chested and glistening and almost _daring_ Johnny to devour him, had left Johnny lurching on the brink of madness ever since it had happened. 

No, Johnny wanted to save Gheorghe from that. He didn’t want him to find out about the rank, cold, black core that was at Johnny’s heart. 

Johnny stared vacantly at the toes of his scruffy shoes. He didn’t have to search himself too deeply to know Gheorghe felt _something_ for him. The way he looked into his eyes, the way they touched. Johnny didn’t know what it was, but whatever it was it was there. From their first handshake, the first glance across the briefing room, it had been hanging there between them. He’d understood Gheorghe’s expression when Hayley Rycroft had tried it on with him in the pub that first night. He’d recognised irritation, perhaps even jealousy, when he’d come out of the pub to find that boy pushing for a second go from Johnny yesterday. 

Whatever. Johnny knew he should do them both a favour and not encourage it. He didn’t have time for all that, anyway. He knew where all that soft stuff got you in the end, when you played that idiot’s game and lost. It left you withered and empty, not even able to go into your own back garden for fear of the hurt that waited for you there.

But Johnny could feel himself swaying over the edge of it all. He knew he should step back, that the slightest movement forwards would take him to a point of trust and touch and need that he wouldn’t be able to just walk away from. Giving in, letting himself fall, had started to feel easier than fighting it. Easier to fall towards Gheorghe, hoping to Christ that he’d catch him, even in spite of how fucked up Johnny was, even in spite of how he’d behaved towards him at the start. The thought petrified him, leaving him motionless and frozen in place. He thought of his father, what the force of loss had reduced him to. A nervous breakdown, gripped by mental illness and a stroke. Imprisoned by grief, because he’d given in and fallen. Fallen over the cliff-edge for his Annie.

It wasn’t even 4pm yet, but between the short December day and the thick, grey quilt of gathering cloud cover, darkness had begun to set in while Johnny had been sitting there thinking, his head spinning. He’d been sitting in just a t-shirt and he realised he’d been aching with cold.

It seized him then, strong and sudden. He _had_ to do something. He couldn’t sit there anymore, torturing himself. He didn’t know what he needed to do, but he knew he’d go insane if he didn’t do it.

Fat raindrops landed on the ground at his feet. He grabbed the empty can of lager he’d drained while he’d been sitting there, and the mangled bit of tin foil he’d been using for an ashtray, and ran into the kitchen, chucking them both into the bin. 

He strode through the house, grabbing his jacket from where he always slung it on the bannister.

“Nan, I’m headin’ out!” he called without stopping.

“It’s rainin’!” she yelled irritably from the living room.

“S’fine!” he shouted back.

“You stoppin’ out all night again?” she called after him drily.

Johnny didn’t answer, slamming the door behind him and pacing off with no idea where he was going. 

The smell of rain falling from the heavy black clouds above him energised Johnny. The rainfall on his face made him feel clean as he walked and walked, pulse racing and heart thumping. He stamped down the mud path of Cathkin Lane, through the drizzle spattering down from the canopy of the trees that hugged the trail, up beyond the station, towards The Crown. It wouldn’t be the first time his feet had taken him for a drink when he’d been thinking of Mam. But he found himself passing the pub altogether, eventually coming to a stop, panting and drenched, in the middle of Tingworth Bridge. He gripped the ancient stone, watching the river running beneath him. It was already becoming wild and swollen with the downpour, racing down under the bridge and roaring away into the darkening distance. 

Johnny needed to see Gheorghe. It was burning him, cutting right through the icy cold.

He broke into a run, doubling back past The Crown and up the road to Gheorghe’s block on Church Street. Finding the front door open he bounded up the stairs to Gheorghe’s flat. He braced himself against the doorframe, watching his fist bang at the door as if he were outside his own body. 

He felt himself sway on the spot, woozy with adrenalin, just as Gheorghe flung the door wide open. 

Johnny gulped air, swallowing thickly at the sight of Gheorghe in the doorway wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, his brown eyes wide with surprise.

“I . . . I dunno why I’m ‘ere,” Johnny panted honestly, dripping wet and shivering, his hands clenched at his sides and his knuckles white. 

He wondered if this was what complete defeat felt like. 

Gheorghe stepped aside slowly, reaching out his hand to Johnny, and Johnny felt his feet carry him into the warmth of the flat, the door closing behind his back with a gentle click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was light on dialogue but I feel like it needed to be. Things will ramp up from the next chapter. Thank you as always to every reader, giver of kudos and commenter x


	10. Gheorghe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time that passed in the last chapter from Gheorghe's perspective . . .

Gheorghe trained his focus on the pounding of his feet against the pavement, each stride propelling his body forwards. He savoured the thumping of his pulse, his chest biting with tightness as he breathed cold air in, warm air out.

He loved to run. He loved the way it silenced his anxiety, the way it could make his anger and frustration and loneliness burn away to nothing.

The job asked a lot of their bodies. Call-outs or no call-outs, they were expected to put in gym time every day. The training they were put through in the drill ground and controlled environments was designed to test them, to find their limits and then push them further. He knew a lot of people in the service looked forward to doing as little exercise as possible on their days off, and he didn’t blame them. 

But Gheorghe always ran, even when he wasn’t at work. He’d go mad if he couldn’t feel this every day, this searing feeling in his muscles, the sweat on his back and the breeze in his face, the sensation of being purged and renewed. He would run and run and run and eventually he’d find the point, that climax, where everything felt beautiful and in place and in balance.

He picked up speed, barely aware of the banks of trees and shops and houses he passed by. He swore it would happen soon, the way it always did. _Soon_ he would have run far enough and fast enough, and the fog of his mind would begin to lift. 

He’d dropped everything just under an hour ago, thrown on shorts and a t-shirt and running shoes and bolted out of his front door to chase this feeling. He’d been going insane in the flat alone. Every passing minute had felt sluggish and slow, like trying to move through a dream. 

He’d pretended to be asleep when John woke. He hadn’t wanted him to feel ambushed by the situation. John was at his most stubborn when he was caught off guard. 

Then he’d sat there in silence for a while after John had left, his mind crowding with memories and worries and wishes until a headache had begun to throb in his forehead. Eventually he’d got up with a groan, his muscles stiff and aching from a night sleeping in the chair. 

He’d wandered listlessly into the kitchen and just stood there for a while, staring out of the window at the severe, grey buildings, the street below ripped up by roadworks that never seemed to be finished. The flat backed onto the car park of a huge discount supermarket, flanked by two blocks of run down council housing on one side and a decaying railway bridge on the other. The few trees there were were winter-stripped, crooked skeletons. The view from his kitchen window was always grim and colourless, and this morning had been no exception. The sky had been fat and ominous with cloud all day, biding its time, waiting for just the right moment to crack open and spill out in a relief of rain. 

He’d watched as a white van ran a red light. The driver of a hatchback coming from the other direction had had to slam on the brakes, sounding their horn in frustration, loud and long. Gheorghe had watched as the driver of the white van reached out of the window, sticking up two fingers at the other driver before speeding away. He’d thought for a moment about the drunk driver they’d cut out of that BMW yesterday. He wondered how much damage the guy had done to himself, what the longer term fallout of his stupidity would be. And he’d wondered how John was feeling about it all. Whether he was coping, or just pretending to.

He’d absent-mindedly flicked the switch on the kettle, turning on his heel to pull out a mug and instant coffee from the cupboards, milk from the fridge. Coffee in hand, he’d made his way back to the living room and sat on the sofa, right where John had lay asleep less than half an hour before. The blankets that John had folded roughly before leaving still sat there on the back of the sofa. Gheorghe had leaned back and rested his head on them, turning his face to lay his cheek against the fabric. His eyes had fallen closed, his coffee going cold as he’d clung desperately to John’s lingering scent of smoke and sweet skin, feeling for the memory of his heat there in the cushions. 

It could be another three days before he laid eyes on him again. 

By 1pm he’d cleaned every room, cooked enough food to feed a family of four for a week and drank so much coffee he’d started to get tremors. With the flat spotless he’d thrown himself back onto the sofa and turned on the TV, flicking through the channels indifferently. The first channel had been showing the soap opera they always seemed to have on the TV at The Crown. The next a daytime chat show. The next was the news, then a show about people with a lot of money buying second homes in sunny places. He’d given up and switched off the TV with a heavy sigh, deciding he’d rather take his chances with his own head than with any of that. 

Another half an hour trying to read the local newspaper he’d picked up a few days ago and he’d realised that if he didn’t get out right then he’d quickly lose his mind. 

Gheorghe rounded the next corner at a full sprint, swerving around a postbox, trying to shake the memory of John’s eyes, his shy glances and reluctant smiles. He tried to block out the way John’s rough hand had felt in his when he’d held it, the way he’d looked so flawless, so tender, laying there asleep last night. He wanted to banish away the memory of Hayley Rycroft’s flirting and the way it made him wish the ground would open up and swallow him, the whispers of ‘gypo’ he’d heard from Liam Rycroft and his friends at work a few days ago that he hadn’t told a soul about. He wanted to stop wondering what Rob had thought was going on when she’d begged him not to break John’s heart. He wanted to pretend that guy outside the pub hadn’t been coming on to John, that it hadn’t made Gheorghe want to punch his smug little face, that John wasn’t a risk to himself when he was drunk. He wanted to see the report he’d need to write for Houghton by the end of his secondment fall together without a struggle, to make sure his mother and Ioana and the kids had everything they needed. He wanted to believe he could choose _not_ to light up inside every time he saw John looking happy.

Exhausted, he slowed to a stop and bent double, his head swimming and his chest constricting painfully. He let out a shout of irritation, noticing too late the elderly lady strolling along across the road. He stood up bolt straight, smiling apologetically at her look of alarmed disapproval. 

 _You’re acting like a crazy man,_ he thought to himself, slowly catching his breath before doubling back to the flat at a gentle jogging pace, the rain finally starting to land in dark splotches on the pavement around him.

He bounded up the stairs, letting himself into the flat, tossing his keys into the bowl next to the door and heading straight to the bathroom. He peeled off his clothes as he went, leaving them in a trail through the hallway. To hell with the mess. He’d have plenty of time to tidy it up later.

He stood under the soothing warm stream of the shower, moaning with relief as the steam rose around him, his muscles relaxing. He lathered soap into his hair roughly, moving down his body to run his hands over his chest and his stomach. 

It was pointless to resist, so he gave in. Squeezing his eyes closed he started stroking at his cock, melting into his fantasy of John, right here with him . . .

_He stood there, behind Gheorghe, his chest pressed to Gheorghe’s back, his warm lips kissing between Gheorghe’s shoulder blades. The water rolled down their bodies, and Gheorghe could feel John’s arms loosening their grip around his waist, moving to run his palms over the dark hair of Gheorghe’s chest, fingertips glancing across his nipples. John pressed kisses to the back of Gheorghe’s neck, his teeth nipping gently at his earlobes as he curled his hand around Gheorghe’s full, heavy cock, stroking and cupping him. Gheorghe growled - John yanked Gheorghe’s hair firmly with one hand in response, pulling his head back to bare more of his neck and throat to John’s teeth and lips and tongue as he picked up the pace of his strokes, John’s own cock pressing, hard, between the cheeks of Gheorghe’s arse, his breath, quick and hot and desperate in Gheorghe’s ear . . ._

Gheorghe jumped when he heard the knock at the door, jarring him out of his dream. He quickly rinsed his hair and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel and knotting it hastily around his waist. He padded down the hallway, half annoyed and half confused, leaving wet footprints behind him. 

He pressed his eye to the peep hole - and froze. 

_John._

Gheorghe threw open the door. His cock was still half hard and he was naked apart from a towel, but John was there and he was wet and he looked cold and wretched and like he might need Gheorghe so none of that mattered right now. 

“I . . . I dunno why I’m ‘ere,” John breathed weakly. His skin was deathly pale and he wasn’t just wet, he was _soaked_ , rain dripping from his face and his hair. He looked taut with something, hands fisted, shoulders squared.

Gheorghe held out his hand. 

John followed.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the fandom will indulge me! I’ve been desperate to write a GOC Firefighter AU for ages, and here it is. 
> 
> I will try to tag for most obvious triggers as I go along, but if at any point you want to flag something I’ve missed please do.
> 
> Anyone with any knowledge of fire and rescue services in the UK will know that I have taken/will be taking creative liberties with several things - I can only ask that you suspend disbelief! Places and original characters are an invention and any similarity to reality coincidental.
> 
> AFA = ‘automatic fire alarm’, those things in multiple occupancy housing, office blocks etc that feel like they go off every time someone coughs. Station wear is worn, well, at the station (as opposed to scene wear which is worn to callouts).
> 
> I really hope you like this, and thank you in advance for reading it.
> 
> As always - I don’t own these characters, I’m just playing with them because I love them. No copyright infringement is intended.


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